Sandbagging Hamilton easily tops Tuesday morning times in Barcelona

Hamilton just can't stop smiling

Despite sandbagging the Aldo Costa car still reigns supreme. Lewis Hamilton set the pace on the second morning of Formula 1 pre-season testing at Barcelona with a set of super-soft tires on his Mercedes.

While his 1m20.9s was easily quickest, his final sector was 0.3s down on the best time he managed on the soft tire, so it is obvious Hamilton is sandbagging to hide the true performance of the Mercedes.

Because of the super soft tires, Hamilton was 1.8s faster than Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen who was still on medium tires.

Esteban Ocon was third quick for Force India on soft Pirellis

Ride-buyer Lance Stroll had a high-speed that damaged his Williams FW40, and after completing just 12 laps and he was done for the day.

After a troubled first day, McLaren's Tuesday was no better. Stoffel Vandoorne stopping the MCL32 in the pit entrance at the end of his second lap.

Following a short spell in the garage after mechanics pushed the car back, Vandoorne was able to log 29 laps before Honda had to put the third engine in the McLaren in 2 days after its second failure.

Rob Smedley, Head of Williams Performance Engineering:
Lance was on lap six of his second run when he had a spin. The grip was particularly low and so he spun and went through the gravel backwards. Even though the accident was entirely innocuous we’ve unfortunately had quite a bit of accident damage, which we’re now in the process of repairing. We’re having to send some composite parts back to the factory, which will be back with us at some point tomorrow. We’re doing the upmost we can now to get back out on track at the earliest opportunity tomorrow. We will be able to recover the program in the coming days.

Lance Stroll:
It is still early days and I have only done a handful of laps. I am just getting to grips with the FW40, and there is still a lot of time ahead of us. It was good to finally get behind the wheel to just get a feel for it. Like I said, it is still early days, so I need to do a lot more running before I know exactly where I am and where the car is at. I will have a much better picture once we have more laps under our belts, but it was good to break the ice and I am looking forward to some more running.

TUESDAY MORNING TIMES: