Second week of preseason testing concludes today

The second week of preseason testing concludes at the Circuit Du Catalunya in Barcelona today. So far this morning Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi has topped the time-sheets with a fastest time of 1m 22.520s. Jenson Button was second with Paul Di Resta third.

This week I have been pleasantly surprised  with Toro Rosso's pace as both Daniel Ricciardo and Jean -Eric Vergne have been in the top five all week. Right now as I type this update Vergne currently lies in 5th place just ahead of Mark Webber in the RedBull.

The shock for me is the fact that Lotus are absent from the test, granted they had an issue with their car however the need to rack up the mileage and unfortunately the chassis failure on Tuesday morning and subsequent discovery of a second fault with their number one chassis forced them to pull out of testing.

In any case they will be back up to speed next week when the final pre-season test kicks off in Barcelona. The team have also asked for an extra day of private testing due to the car failure. This week also saw Vitaly Petrov make his track debut with the Caterham F1 team. The Russian has replaced Jarno Trulli for 2012 and so far the team have been very happy with his progress and feedback.

In other news Ferrari and RedBull have altered their plans for the final preseason test which takes place from next Thursday to Sunday. The two team's have decided to run their cars from Friday 2nd to Monday 5th March instead of Thursday to Sunday. Ferrari decided to change their plans and RedBull approached the Scuderia and asked if they could join them at the test which Ferrari, a request Ferrari were delighted to accept.

I have found it extremely interesting that despite Lotus' problem's and a few teething problems for RedBull and Ferrari, reliability has been very good for the teams. All the team's with the exception of Marussia were running their 2012 machines this week, however Marussia were using 2012-spec Pirelli tyres on their car. So when next week's test gets underway all 12 team's will be in attendance with HRT opting to skip the second test to concentrate on the development of their 2012 car.

McLaren who have been matching the pace of RedBull throughout testing have announced they will be bringing a major update for the MP4-27 to Barcelona next week although I'm sure that all the team's will have upgrades for the final test.

I am extremely excited as the Formula One season officially gets underway in exactly three week's from today (Friday). In fact this time three week's we will know who was fastest in the first two practice session's in Melbourne. T - 21 DAY'S TO GO UNTIL TRACK ACTION STARTS IN MELBOURNE AND THEN AS THE LEGENDARY MURRAY WALKER USED TO SAY IT WILL BE GO GO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!