Barcelona Test Day Four: Rain Interrupts Play

Rain washed out the final day of testing at Circuit de Catalunya today, with only eight drivers setting laps and Force India deciding to head home early and save their mileage. Mark Webber ventured out on track early in between showers and was able to set a time that would stand for the rest of the day. Heikki Kovalainen was sent out in the McLaren MP4-23 and was the fastest of the drivers setting laps on the totally soaked tarmac, running 1.5s down on Webber and less than 0.1s up on Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari. The gap to fourth placed driver Robert Kubica was 1.1s, the remaining positions taken up by Jenson Button, Kazuki Nakajima, Nelson Piquet Jr and Jarno Trulli in eighth.

Despite setting the most laps, Nakajima suffered a small hiccup earlier in the day when his Toyota engine let go, causing the only red flag of the session. Trulli only completed 18 laps, sitting at the bottom of the tables on both counts of laps set and overall lap time. However, the Italian driver is optimistic that further testing at the circuit will make up for the lack of progress completed today.

When we finally did some running we put in a few laps of wet set-up but with the track changing so much it is always hard to draw too many conclusions. When we return here next week the conditions will be different again. But we have had some solid days of testing here this year so we can head into the race with confidence. Jarno Trulli.

Scuderia Toro Rosso were forced to sit out of today’s running, Sebastien Bourdais damaging the only new car the team have in Spain while debuting it yesterday. Super Aguri were also absent, the Japanese squad currently in financial turmoil and unable to attend test sessions.