Patronise F1

08.00 GMT - Good morning, and welcome to the second day of Patty's coverage of the opening pre-season F1 test of 2012. Throughout the day's proceedings I'll be doing my utmost (or at least part of my utmost) to keep you up to date with the major twists and turns of Wednesday's action from Jerez.

The drivers in action today are pretty much the same as yesterday, with a few minor changes. Michael Schumacher has the 2011 Mercedes to himself all day long after sharing with Nico Rosberg yesterday, Sergio Perez takes over from Kamui Kobayashi at Sauber, and Ferrari development driver Jules Bianchi gets the morning in the Force India as part of his role as the team's reserve driver.

Our runners and riders for today, then, are as follows:
- Mark Webber (Red Bull RB8)
- Jenson Button (McLaren MP4/27)
- Felipe Massa (Ferrari F2012)
- Michael Schumacher (Mercedes W02)*
- Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus E20)
- Jules Bianchi (morning) / Paul di Resta (afternoon) (Force India VJM05)
- Sergio Perez (Sauber C31)
- Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso STR7)
- Pastor Maldonado (Williams FW34)
- Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham CT01)
- Pedro de la Rosa (HRT F111)*
* Running their 2011 car.

Yesterday saw F1 returnee Kimi Raikkonen set the pace for Lotus, ahead of di Resta and Rosberg, the Finn topping the session despite losing much of his afternoon running time after the team were forced to change a KERS battery. F1's prodigal son will be hoping to stay on top today, but we might expect to see a glimmer or two more from F1's more established teams today as well.

If you missed any of yesterday's action, or if you just want a refresher in what went on, here is how Patty covered it:
- Jerez Test Day 1 - as it happened
- Jerez Test Day 1 Report - Comeback Kimi tops Jerez day 1 for Lotus
- Jerez pre-season test - Day 1 reaction

As ever, today's track time runs from 08.00 GMT to 16.00 GMT, so without further ado let's get this liveblog on the road.

08.15 GMT - The first fifteen minutes pass without incident, save from some installation laps from everyone. Which are always fun, aren't they? It's a chilly morning in Jerez, hovering around 3°C at the moment.

Catherham might be a team to watch today. After running their new KERS system in 'passive' mode today, Heikki Kovalainen will be running the boost button properly for the first time ever. Tweets Mike Gascoyne: "Will be running with KERS active for the first time today, will be interesting for the engineers and driver. Installation laps completed with no problems, KERS and DRS systems bboth[sic] working well."

08.25 GMT - Three degrees centigrade is still approximately seven million times warmer than it is outside my branch of Patty HQ at the moment, mind you, so I'm not going to accept any complaints from the teams about the cold.

We have lap times, two of them. Raikkonen is again the first man to set a time, popping in a slow time in the 1:26s, and Kovalainen beats that with a 1:22.320 to set the early pace in his KERS-ified Caterham. Print screen, end season now, etc.

08.35 GMT - Promisingly for Caterham, that first KERS lap is quicker than anything they managed yesterday, though Kovalainen only managed 28 laps then, but still that might be an early sign of progress. Or a sign that nobody was trying yesterday.

Meanwhile, we'll be watching for more in the way of pace from the big guns today. None of them will be concerned by their position behind Lotus yesterday just yet, mind you. As Mark Webber apparently told his team: "We drive the cars in their baby format as it's the very start of the season."

Webber sets his first laps of the day to take over at the top on a 1:21.518, and Maldonado has set a (quite slow) time for Williams as well. The Grove team had a frustrating day yesterday with the FW34, technical niggles delaying the Venezuelan, so they will want a trouble-free bimble today.

08.45 GMT - Our first red flag of the day comes and goes, caused apparently by some gravel on the circuit of all things. Still, that didn't take too long to fix and we're back underway again, and it's now time for the nation of Australia to press print screen, as Ricciardo and his Toro Rosso make it an Antipodean 1-2.

08.50 GMT - And now another red flag. Oil on the track, apparently. Sigh. It's not been the most spectacular start to a test session ever, though I'm not really sure what I'm comparing it against. Has there ever been a spectacular start to a test session?

On Twitter, nonobadbaddog is presumably pleased with the stoppage: "The season can end now....2 Aussies on top of charts". Yep, it's Especially for You all over again.

08.55 GMT - The red flag again doesn't take too long to lift, and now maybe we can get a concerted period of on-track lapping in, even if said lapping might sadly break up the Aussie 1-2. Jules Bianchi is out completing aero tests for Force India, who tweeted a photo of their new man clambering aboard for the first time earlier on.

09.00 GMT - Webber's just starting to stretch the legs of the RB8 this morning, setting consecutive mid 1:20s on his first stint after that last red flag to move back to the top of the timesheets. Massa has also started lapping in the F2012, and is immediately quicker than he was yesterday. The teams aren't quite cranking it up to eleven yet, but they've slightly ratcheted up their performance this morning.

09.10 GMT - Times are ticking in now, as everyone starts to get into their programmes. Button has gone second for McLaren, a smidge behind Webber, while Schumacher and Perez are lapping as well. Sergio's first time in the C31 of course, which to my tentative lapting-scanning eyes looked a little slow yesterday in the hands of Kamui Kobayashi. Still, Sauber's pre-season pace tends to be directly proportional to how many sponsors they have, and they're looking healthy on that front. It's probably nothing.

09.20 GMT - An email from shameless Kimista Phil, who says: "Hope Kimi can keep ahead today, great to see his time back at the top of the times even if it is only testing!" I don't think you're the only one who had that view yesterday, Phil, but you might have to wait a bit longer to see Kimi's name back on top of the timesheets. After his single early lap time, he came back to the pits for the team to, and I quote: "A checkover and hoover action. We may even replace the plank."

09.25 GMT - Webber is still motoring on his next run, setting a 1:19.6 on his first lap out of the pits to extend a lead of over half a second over his nearest rival. That lap is just the tiniest of smidges slower than Raikkonen's session-topper yesterday, but was set in cooler conditions. He follows that up with a slow lap, before rifling in a 1:19.8 next time by.

He pits at the end of that three lap run, which is a similar sort of mini-stint as he was doing throughout yesterday afternoon. His nearest rival is now Ricciardo again, who has improved his own lot to a 1:20.307 on the second lap of a four lap timed run.

09.45 GMT - First proper lap from Mr Bianchi folks, and he goes fourth with a 1:20.889. He's already done 23 laps this morning despite not really setting any times, concentrating on straight line aero tests and the like.

That time means that everyone save HRT are now on the timesheets, though in exciting news from the Spaniards, Pedro de la Rosa will be out soon. "Ready to go out," they tweet.

09.50 GMT - I'm having some minor issues with my timing sources this morning, so it's hard for me to give you much more than the vaguest hint of what is going on out there. So what else is new etc etc. Other recent improvements include Maldonado, who has set what is easily the FW34's quickest lap to date with a 1:22.184, and Schumache - who goes 5th in the 2011-and-a-bit Mercedes.

10.10 GMT - De la Rosa has now set a lap, and he's faster than Raikkonen! The Finn hasn't set a representative lap time yet, and DLR is still some five seconds off Webber, but little acorns and all that. This is a big day elsewhere for HRT, the team confirmed yesterday that their F112 chassis is undergoing the final FIA crash tests today, and they're still on course for a debut of their new car at the second test in Barcelona at the end of the month. Good stuff.

We've also had a first proper lap time from Perez's Sauber. A 1:21.6 puts him 8th, and it came on a brief two lap run out of the pits. 19 quite slow laps from the C31 so far, but they've mainly been doing system checks.

10.15 GMT - Webber continues to turn up the wick in the RB8, setting a 1:19.459 at the start of his latest run to extend his advantage over the field. That is the quickest lap of the test so far, beating Kimi's day one time by a couple of tenths.

We've had some solid green flag running for the last hour or so, after early stoppages for debris on the circuit (well, gravel and oil). Yesterday saw a couple of cars conk out on track, Ricciardo and Kobayashi. The latter rather unceremoneously replaced his headrest after his stoppage, but the team later confirmed the issue was nothing more than the car running out of fuel, as they checked the exact capacity of their new tank.

10.25 GMT - That stint from Webber featured his 19.4 and a 19.7, punctuated by a slow lap. A qualifying simulation run then, but probably not a qualifying effort. Too early in the test for drivers to be giving it the full beans.

Maldonado has just set a PB as well to go 7th ahead of Perez. 38 laps for the FW34 so far after yesterday's niggly and disrupted day. And I have an email about them from Ted: "Not seen much from Williams so far, hope they can go well this year. But I don't think they've got the drivers to really star." Maldonado, possibly not, no. But we've not really seen the full Senna yet, I don't think. He's probably never going to live up to his surname, of course, but he was probably worth the gamble over, say, Boobens.

10.30 GMT - Ferrari are, as ever, quick to reassure their fans. They explained on their Twitter feed at the start of the day that today will not be about outright times: "Today's work will be the same as yesterday. We need to collect as many data as possible to understand better the behaviour of the car. So, don't expect to see spectacular lap times from our side. What is important is that we do our job in the proper way."

Right now, Massa is 6th, nearly two seconds slower than Webber. He's been doing 4-5 lap runs throughout the morning so far, and the times for his last one were an all-over-the-place 23.0, 25.0, 24.0, 34.9, 39.8.

10.35 GMT - It's all about Red Bull at the moment. Webber adds another chunk to the gap between himself and the chasing pack with a 1:19.184. Same type of run as he's been doing recently, as he backs off on his second lap before whelping in a 1:19.8 on the second run. We saw the 'do one lap, ease off then do another' tactic a bit in qualifying last year. It never seemed to work, and it's not working for Webber on these runs today, his quick lap is always the first one.

10.40 GMT - Promising stuff from Kovalainen, who lowers the Caterham CT01's best time to a 1:21.518, 8th overall and 2.3 seconds off Webber. Meantime we're still waiting for a proper run from Raikkonen, apparently the gravel-based red flag earlier was caused by the Finn running off the track, which explains that earlier tweet from the team talking about them needing to hoover the car.

10.55 GMT - After his gravelly contretemps, Raikkonen is now back out, and is immediately into the high 1:20s/low 1:21s to improve his lot to fifth place. Lotus will be hoping to complete some longer runs at some point today after losing the chance to do any yesterday when a KERS battery needed replacing. The team confirmed on Twitter that the delay was for "a plank replacement, hoover out of gravel, general checkover and polish", as well as a steering rack change.

11.00 GMT - And now Schumacher goes P1 in the old Mercedes. A blisteringly fast lap compared to anything else we've seen so far this week - a 1:18.622 - and that's put some cats amongst some pigeons. We've also had minor improvements from Massa, Perez and Ricciardo in the last few minutes. It's getting hard for me to keep up with my rudimentary combination of timing screens and social networks.

11.10 GMT - Schumie repeats the trick with his next run, taking another tenth off his best time to drop down to a 1:18.5. Not sure what this is proving particularly, but at least he's enjoying himself.

11.20 GMT - Just to clarify, Lotus haven't cloned Kimi, I just forgot to delete his old time off our leaderboard so he was briefly listed twice. That's been cleared up now.

We've had improvements from Bianchi, who did a 1:20.221 on a Webber-style quali sim (not that Webber patented the style) and also from Massa, who does a 1:21.060 as part of a typically-confusing four lap run in the F2012. A 21.5, that 21.0, a 21.7 and a 35.5. Wheeeee!

11.30 GMT - Kevin Parr, who might have a broken keyboard, emails to simply shout: "NEWS OF MCLAREN??" Well, seeing as you've been so polite about it, I'll tell you that Button is 6th in the times with a 1:20.688, and has spent his morning doing pretty much the same as everyone else has been doing, i.e. a string of inconclusive short runs. We've not seen all the MP4-27 has to offer yet, though given that everyone is currently slower than a 43-year old in a 2011 car, we've not seen all that anyone has to offer.

11.45 GMT - No significant changes in the times at the moment, though Raikkonen moved up to fifth a short while ago with his best lap of the day so far, a 1:20.239 at the start of a short four lap stint, which is the sort of stint everyone is doing.

We're getting near the crossover point, where everyone will grab a bite to eat and then switch focus (hopefully) to some longer runs in the afternoon. That's when we'll be able to start trying analysing some trends to try and put together some entirely fictional conclusions in time for Melbourne.

11.55 GMT - With nobody else improving at the moment, I may as well highlight that Pedro de la Rosa has got his benchmark time down to a 1:23.468, nearly a second faster than he managed yesterday and within five seconds of Schumie. Our timing chart is bookended by 2011 cars at the moment, so make of that what you will.

Also, don't forget that if you feel I'm ignoring/avoiding talking about your favoured driver/team, you can get in touch with a question about them by the above email address or on the old Twitter, that the kids use these days. That's partly a polite reminder, and partly a desperate beg for stimulus as we approach the quiet unofficial lunch hour.

12.00 GMT - Button has done the least laps of anyone bar the delayed Raikkonen and the irrelevent de la Rosa at the moment, and is back on track now. The team haven't reported any issues though, and seem to have a plan. They tweet: "We're running through a long list of test items today - don't forget it's called testing for a reason! Lots to learn and lots to find out!"

12.15 GMT - In today's 'race to a century', the outright leader is Kovalainen, who has 78 laps in the books even with the team running KERS properly for the first time, so that's all positive. He's only 2.3 seconds off the best 2012 car (Webber) as well. And Mike Gascoyne seems pretty pleased about the situation: "Short break for lunch, really good morning with 78 trouble free laps completed with no issues. Big improvement from last year."

12.20 GMT - Our session-topper, the esteemed Mr Schumacher, is now on a longer run. Some 1:21s from the Mercedes, and while this car is not 2012-spec, the tyres are, so the team will be racing to gather as much data today and tomorrow (when Rosberg returns), before shuffling off a day early to prepare for the launch of the W03.

12.25 GMT - My desperate beg for attention has mercifully resulted in another tweet from nonobadbaddog, who may well be the only person reading this right now and therefore wins my unending gratitude. They say: "Quick question, will Caterham get themselves into the middle of the pack this season?"

The middle of the pack may be pushing it given the performance gap they have to make up, but they are turning some promising laps. Earlier this morning Kovalainen did a 9 lap stint in the mid-1:22s, and while there's little to compare that to directly given the short stints everyone is tending to do, that's not exactly poor. Today's reliable morning is a boon as well.

Having said that, last year in the Jerez test Kovalainen's best time was less than two seconds off the overall fastest time (set by Rubens Barrichello of all people), and we all know how their 2011 season went. Still, I'd say they'll be very disappointed not to be regularly mixing it in Q2 next year at the least.

12.30 GMT - "Trying to read anything into testing times is just pointless," Peter K emails in to say, pouring further scorn onto the shambles that is this blog, "I still reckon we'll see another Red Bull procession this year." Pointless it may be, but it's a bit of fun, isn't it? Certainly more fun than thinking about another year of Vettel domination and trying to summon up the will to live long enough to get through another free practice MBM report at the fourth dead rubber GP weekend of the season come late October.

12.35 GMT - I think there's something wrong with the timing screen I have for Webber. It's suggesting he hasn't been on track for two hours and has only done 33 laps, but in fact he's done twice that number. It's a good job I didn't type out an extensive update speculating on problems with the RB8 based on the timing screen alone, only thinking to double check the evidence prior to submitting it to the blog, because that would have been a real waste of five minutes of my life.

12.45 GMT - "If you had all the resources of bottom 4 teams from last year and had to build a middle of the pack team, what combination of chassis, driver, engine would you pull together," asks the artist formerly known as nonbadbaddog via email, now keeping both avenues of contact with this blog ticking over.

I'm not 100% sure I understand the question, but despite my mixed response on Caterham's competitiveness around 15 minutes ago, I think I'd stick with that teams resources/drivers. They've got the title-winning engine and KERS gubbins this year, a solid driver pairing, and in Mike Gascoyne a man who has a history of designing midfield cars. He'll get there in the end, it's just proving a bigger ask with a new start-up.

In comparison, I fear for Williams this year. The wholesale technical reshuffle could either breath new life into the team, or prove such a disruption as to nullify any possible gains they might have made. And as for HRT and Marussivirgin, erm, well, oh dear.

12.50 GMT - After Bianchi's morning cameo, Paul di Resta is back in the Force India for the afternoon, the Scotsman having gone second fastest overall on Day 1. This will be his last taste of the VJM05 until the Barcelona test in two weeks time, so he'll be hoping to make the most of it. The track appears to be starting to fill up again, meaning that I've completely missed the 'go and grab lunch' window. Bah.

13.00 GMT - "Any more driver changes today apart from Force India?" Ted asks. Nope, that's the lot, at least as far as I'm aware. The big changeover in line-ups happens for tomorrow, when the majority of the teams will switch to their second driver for the rest of the test.

And 'maddog' aka Mike is back as well: "If Tony F had a choice of Vettel or Newey to add to his team to make them super competitive...which would he choose?" I can't pretend to be able to second guess the choices of a man who just sanctioned the purchase of Bobby Zamora for £6million for his Queen's Park Rangers football club, but I would say Vettel. An average driver can do better in a good car than a good driver can do in a bad one. If you catch my drift.

13.05 GMT - Right, there's a red flag out, mercifully. Apparently some damage to a section of kerbing. So I'm chancing a lunch run. I'll be quick. Nobody tell The Head!

13.25 GMT - I'm back. And I've just realised that the reply I gave to that last email made no sense at all. To clarify, I'd pick Newey, not Vettel. For the reason I gave. Still, I've redacted my response now so it makes sense, so provided I don't subsequently mention my error, nobody will ever kn...oh.

13.30 GMT - Aside from mistakes on this blog, what have you I missed? Well, very little. The red flag period didn't take too long to clear, and now we're back to green. Di Resta has improved his lot, setting a 1:21.232 on a fast-slow-fast 'quali sim' and now sits 9th, and everyone else is into some longer runs. Hopefully my timing issues clear up and I start getting some times for these stints, otherwise the rest of the afternoon may feature even more guesswork than usual.

13.45 GMT - Di Resta parps in another improvement, a 1:20.8, and backs off. His next lap, then, should be another quick one. And it is, a 1:20.716, his fastest of the day so far, and the first driver to my recollection who has managed to run his second quick lap faster than his first. That puts the Scot seventh.

13.50 GMT - Kimi's on a long run in the Lotus at the moment, setting times rangine from a 23.9 to a 25.1, but mostly in the 24s (that's how a range works, I guess). That doesn't compare particularly favourably with Button's long runs in the McLaren yesterday, though of course MASSIVE 'THIS IS TESTING' CAVEAT ETC.

13.55 GMT - Two hours to go today, and indeed for most of these drivers in their cars for this test. Only Perez is still scheduled to get any more time on track after today of this lot.

Raikkonen's stint comes to an end after what I see as a 13 lap run. Here are the times: 24.4, 24.3, 24.3, 24.0, 24.1, 23.9, 24.0, 25.1, 24.5, 24.3, 24.6, 24.2, 24.6.

By way of any sort of a comparison, which it almost certainly isn't due to fuel, track conditions, etcetcetcetc, here's a 14 lap stint from di Resta's Force India yesterday: 25.7, 25.2, 25.0, 25.0, 24.8, 24.8, 24,8, 25.0, 25.0, 25.0, 24.9, 24.9, 24.8, 25.1.

14.00 GMT - Speaking of di Resta, he does another PB to move himself ahead of Button in the timesheets. His latest lap is a 1:20.2, again set on the second fast lap of a fast-slow-fast combo.

14.15 GMT - Kovalainen's into another long run, as he closes in on 100 laps for the day. The Caterham is going well in this stint, comfortably in the 1:23s. But we'll see how long it lasts.

Also lapping is Button, who just did an eight lap stint in the high 1:23s/low 1:24s and Schumacher, who is in the 1:21s in his year-old Mercedes. Webber may also be out there, but my timing is still playing up for the Red Bull man for some reason, so I'm afraid I can't be too specific on what he's doing.

14.30 GMT - Button's still bimbling around in the 1:23s, Raikkonen is on another long-ish stint, during which he has mainly been in the 1:24s, di Resta's in the 1:25s, as is Ricciardo. That's about all I can really tell you for certain at the moment. Any requests?

14.40 GMT - End of Ricciardo's stint - 15 laps. Here are his times: 25.5, 25.2, 27.0, 25.1, 25.4, 25.1, 25.3, 26.3, 25.2, 25.7, 25.5, 27.8, 26.1, 25.6, 26.6. So a few obvious mistakes being made by the youngster in that one.

Raikkonen's stint has also come to an end - 14 laps. And here's how the Finn went, with a few errors sprinkled in from him as well: 25.0, 24.6, 24.3, 24.7, 24.0, 24.2, 24.4, 24.1, 24.7, 26.8, 25.3, 28.5, 27.0, 26.2. Commence your guesstimations on relative Toro Rosso/Lotus performance now.

14.50 GMT - More timing issues. Sigh. I can tell you that Kovalainen has indeed won today's 'race to a century'. These long afternoon runs from the Caterham man have pushed him up to 109 tours for the day so far as we approach the final hour.

15.05 GMT - Di Resta's also doing some long-ish runs in the Force India, having run some short stints at the start of his afternoon in the car. Times looking ok-ish. Hovering between the mid-1:24s and mid-1:25s, which is sort of bang on the same sort of average pace Ricciardo was getting out of the Toro Rosso.

Meanwhile, Ted emails back to ask: "Any problems at McLaren? Button's not done many laps." That's not quite true, he's done 63 of the things, but apart from the half-day Findia duo that's less than anyone bar Perez and Maldonado. The team hasn't reported any issues, Ted, and Button has been out regularly throughout the day. He's just yet to do a particularly long series of stints. There may, however, be problems at Sauber. Perez has only done ten laps since lunch.

Incidentally, a McLaren-obsessed Ted? The intrigue grows...

15.15 GMT - Schumie has joined Kovalainen in the 100 Club, 112 laps now for the German, and he's spent the afternoon pounding round on long stints. You'd imagine that will be pretty much a straight GP simulation for the 2011 Mercedes, giving the team a perfect set of 2012 Pirelli tyre data to then compare against their experiences in the same car on 2011 tyres last year.

15.20 GMT - Massawatch: The Brazilian is on track at the moment, and recently did a 8 lap run largely in the 1:22s. He's also just set his own PB for the day at the start of his latest run, a 1:20.549 to close within 1.3 seconds of the best 2012 car time. He remains seventh in the pecking order, mind you.

15.30 GMT - I was going to suggest that Button was doing some sort of race simulation this afternoon, given that he's now done three straight 8-11 lap stints, but he probably isn't because the times are all backwards. His first (8 lap) stint was around a high 1:23 average, his second (11 lap) stint was a mid 1:23 average, and his third (9 lap) stint was down in the mid 1:25s. Meh.

15.35 GMT - Winding down at the end of day two, and although nonobadbaddog may not have officially got the Australia 1-2 he was hoping for earlier (08.50 GMT), if you discount Schumacher's 2011 car then we do have a Webber-Ricciardo 1-2.

15.40 GMT - Minor improvement for de la Rosa, who sneaks his PB down to a 1:22.1 in the 2011-spec HRT. The fact that he is less than three seconds slower than Webber's RB8 probably tells you all you need to know about whether we're close to seeing the best from our new F1 cars yet.

15.50 GMT - Another improvement from Massa, a 1:20.454, but he remains seventh. His last stint was not too bad, some ten laps long and averaging a lap time around the mid-1:21s. Not long to go now, you'll be pleased to hear.

15.55 GMT - Timing issues means that I haven't got a ruddy clue what Webber has been doing all afternoon. He's done plenty of laps, and I'm told that they've been promising-looking long stints, but aside from that I can't really say. My conclusions for today would be something along the lines of: I don't know.

16.00 GMT - Chequered flag out. And unless something involving wormholes, parallax and quantum gravitation happens, we're not going to be seeing any last-second improvements. CUE DE LA ROSA P1 RUN!

Epilogue - Nope, no P1 run from the Spaniard, so the day two times are locked down, and it is Michael Schumacher, the elderly man in the elderly car, that takes the bragging rights today. Webber, though, was the best of the cars that will actually be racing this year in second, just ahead of his countryman Daniel Ricciardo, and comfortably faster than anyone else. Ominous? Not just yet, no. Give it a couple of weeks.

Ok then, I will love you and leave you. Today's report is taking shape over here for your perusal, and thank you all for reading, and for contibuting yourselves. If you thought this was fun, I'll be doing it all again tomorrow from 08.00 GMT with day 3. See you then, hopefully.