Catalunya (Test 2, Day 3) - Hamilton posts an adjusted lap 1.2 seconds faster than the field

The teams finally got some dry running and it made for an interesting day. Everyone ran different programmes but again Mercedes shone for the second consecutive day. The big news is Hamilton achieved an adjusted lap time of sub 1:20, 1.2 seconds clear of Massa.

More analysis will follow at a later date but here are the fastest fuel adjusted times and the comparison to last week's test.

 

 

 

Fastest adjusted laps

 Assumptions

• An adjustment should be made for the least amount of fuel we know to be on board (each lap consumes approximately 2.4kg and 10kg of fuel is worth 0.4 seconds around Catalunya - if a car does 10 laps then it must have 24kg therefore an adjustment of (24/10 *0.4 seconds) 0.96 seconds must be applied)  
• There is a difference of 0.5 seconds between each compound. This theory is not applied to the super soft as there is evidence to suggest it is roughly equal to the soft. The super soft (SS) cannot last a full lap without huge degradation currently.
• When a tyre is unknown, either due to lack of information or being unmarked then it is assumed to be soft (no adjustment)
• The data collected from here is assumed to be accurate. This is largely the case but there was some point in the day when it wasn't collecting times (e.g. The fastest outright lap of the day - a 1:20.588 by Hamilton. This isn't included in the analysis below and wouldn't be faster, adjusted, than the 1:20.817 set on the mediums).

This means Hamilton has now set 5 of the 6 fastest adjusted laps over the two tests. Here are the three fastest adjusted laps from all of the other teams:

Below are the fastest adjusted times from Barcelona last week (adjusted for the super soft assumption change, it was assumed to be 0.5 seconds faster than the soft which isn't the case).

 

 
What do you make of these sensational headline times? Will Mercedes win a race this year?