Raikkonen shows Ferrari pace on second day of test

Kimi Raikkonen set the quickest time of the Silverstone in-season test as the Finn improved on his qualifying lap from the British Grand Prix.

Using soft tyres throughout the afternoon session, Raikkonen showed flashes of pace before finally putting together a complete lap which saw him top the times with a 1:30.665. The lap left him over half a second clear of the rest of the field, and was a little over 0.2s quicker than his Q3 lap on Saturday at Silverstone.

Ferrari had struggled throughout the British Grand Prix weekend, with Raikkonen citing a lack of downforce, but on Wednesday he insisted the focus had not been on rectifying only the problems from the last race.

“We’re doing normal testing work, all kind of different things to try and find good things," Raikkonen said. “It’s not just specifically we had some aero problem here, we’re lacking overall, and this circuit needs a lot of aero, so normal testing.”

Esteban Ocon had topped the times at the lunch break and stayed there for the majority of the afternoon, with his lap of 1:31.212 on soft tyres less than 0.1s quicker than Fernando Alonso's benchmark from Tuesday. Ocon again impressed during a productive day, easily exceeding the 100-lap mark once again.

After a disjointed day on Tuesday, Pierre Gasly enjoyed much more running on the second day for Red Bull , passing 100 laps in the RB12. A run on soft tyres in the final two minutes of the session saw Gasly jump up to third place, 0.217s adrift of Ocon and three quarters of a second slower than Raikkonen.

Another driver to impress was Nikita Mazepin in the Force India. The 17-year-old Russian carried out limited running on Tuesday due to the rain but was quickly up to speed on Wednesday and carried out some performance runs in the afternoon. Mazepin's best time of 1:31.561 was enough for fourth in the standings, and although he used supersofts it was just over a quarter of a second off Alonso's lap on the same tyre.

Alonso handed the McLaren over to Stoffel Vandoorne on Wednesday and the Belgian completed another busy day for the team. Over 100 laps saw a best time just over a second slower than Raikkonen - also on soft tyres - although Vandoorne did try the ultrasoft for two laps before pitting without setting a time.

Williams ran its double decker rear wing once again in the final hour of running. The wing - which the team also ran in Barcelona and said is designed "to gain a better understanding of the car aero balance over a lap" - helped Valtteri Bottas to sixth fastest on the day, over 1.7s slower than Raikkonen.

Santino Ferrucci was another driver to reach triple figures after a busy morning carrying out pit stop practice for Haas. In the afternoon, Ferrucci completed his fastest lap on softs, with his 1:33.141 within a second of the time set by Esteban Gutierrez in qualifying at Silverstone.

Jolyon Palmer was eighth quickest, posting his best time in the final ten minutes as Renault focused on suspension work during the day. Palmer - who didn't make it back to the pits after the chequered flag - was three quarters of a second faster than the Toro Rosso debutant Sergio Sette Camara, who completed 82 laps on his first day in the car but did have a high speed spin at the final corner.

AS IT HAPPENED: Silverstone in-season test - Day 2

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