Williams test driver Susie Wolff will drive the team’s 2015 car, the FW37, at Barcelona on Thursday, the opening day of Formula One’s second pre-season test.
While importance of the event for McLaren-Honda has already been underlined by the team's decision to use up both of their allotted 2015 filming days this week in an urgent bid to cajole their new charger, the seemingly-shy MP4-30, back on track after a problematic four days in Jerez, the test at the Circuit de Catalunya will also see a number of reserve and development drivers given their chance to impress.
GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer will run for Lotus following his appointment as the team's Third Driver, while Mercedes reserve Pascal Wehrlein will be in action for Force India - although the troubled Silverstone outfit, which sat out the Jerez test, will only be using its 2014 car.
Running alongside the likes of world champion Lewis Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo and Jenson Button on the opening day in Barcelona, Wolff will be behind the wheel of the Williams after being promoted to an expanded role with the team this year. Regular race drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa will then take over driving duties on Friday and Saturday respectively before sharing the FW37 on Day Four.
McLaren, who completed less than 80 laps in Jerez, have not revealed any details about how much running they completed on Monday and Tuesday at Barcelona, although a sprinkling of updates on the team's twitter account revealed that both Button and new team-mate Fernando Alonso were in attendance.
After McLaren's high-profile reunion with Honda, the aggressively-designed MP4-30 was spotted only fleetingly in southern Spain at the start of the month as the new-but-old partnership encountered an unexpected number of technical gremlins. "We’d anticipated there would be issues – this is a test, after all – but the difficulties we faced here were more than we’d expected," conceded Honda chief Yasuhisa Arai.
After a highly encouraging start to the year in Jerez, where they topped the timesheets on three of the four days, Ferrari are expected to focus on the long-run performance of their new car, the SF15-T, this week. World champions Mercedes are yet to demonstrate the full capabilities of their 2015 challenger, the W06, but completed over 500 laps in Jerez in an ominous illustration of their strength.
Sky Sports Digital will be providing live commentary from trackside for the duration of the test while Rachel Brookes will be reporting from Barcelona for Sky Sports News HQ. On each night of the test, there will also be a forty-five minute review of the day’s events and talking points on Sky Sports F1 with the latest editions of Paddock Uncut followed by an extended Ted’s Notebook.
BARCELONA TEST ONE LINE-UPS
Day One
Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton
Red Bull: Daniel Ricciardo
Williams: Susie Wolff
Ferrari: Kimi Raikkonen*
McLaren: Jenson Button
Toro Rosso: Max Verstappen*
Lotus: Pastor Maldonado
Sauber: Felipe Nasr
Force India: Pascal Wehrlein
Day Two
Mercedes: Nico Rosberg
Red Bull: Daniel Ricciardo
Williams: Felipe Massa
Ferrari: Kimi Raikkonen*
McLaren: Jenson Button
Toro Rosso: Carlos Sainz*
Lotus: Jolyon Palmer
Sauber: Marcus Ericsson
Force India: Sergio Perez
Day Three
Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton
Red Bull: Daniil Kvyat
Williams: Valtteri Bottas
Ferrari: Sebastian Vettel*
McLaren: Fernando Alonso
Toro Rosso: Max Verstappen*
Lotus: Pastor Maldonado
Sauber: Marcus Ericsson
Force India: Pascal Wehrlein
Day Four
Mercedes: Nico Rosberg
Red Bull: Daniil Kvyat
Williams: Felipe Masssa and Valtteri Bottas
Ferrari: Sebastian Vettel*
McLaren: Fernando Alonso
Force India: TBA
Toro Rosso: Carlos Sainz*
Lotus: Romain Grosjean
Sauber: Felipe Nasr
Force India: Nico Hulkenberg
*To be confirmed
The Sky Sports F1 Online team will be providing live commentary from all four days of both Barcelona tests. Sky Sports News HQ will also have live updates from trackside.