Barcelona Test: Day Three

Yesterday saw the third day of the final group test complete, with many of the teams running different drivers to before. The weather continued to remain calm and pleasant (aside from a short shower), allowing the squads to complete a lot of mileage before all the equipment and machinery is packed up and sent to Bahrain for opening race in a couple of weeks. The third day of four saw Nico Rosberg head the timing sheet, touring Circuit de Catalunya in 1m20.686s, 0.72s slower than yesterday’s pacesetter Nico Hulkenberg.

Many of the drivers were running race simulations, and although he topped the timing sheet, Rosberg’s day wasn’t without incident. The German pilot stopped on track towards the end of his run with a fault. Impressing with a second-fastest lap of the day was Sebastien Buemi, although he too suffered problems and stopped on track after running out of fuel immediately after completing a race simulation of his own.

Renault allowed rookie Vitaly Petrov to pilot the R30, the Russian managing the sixth quickest lap just behind Felipe Massa who took over from Fernando Alonso. Jenson Button hauled himself into third after a final push at the end of the afternoon while Sebastian Vettel only completed 51 laps and set the eighth fast lap, choosing not to go out until after lunch.

Lotus continued their programme and once looked very reliable, albeit not very quick. Jarno Trulli notched up another 100 laps in a trouble-free day while Virgin Racing suffered more issues with the VR-01, Timo Glock only managing 31 laps. The busiest driver of the day was Nico Rosberg, who completed 128 laps.

Barcelona Test Day Three		Lap Time Fastest Time Set	Laps Set Number Laps Completed
1.	Nico Rosberg Mercedes	1m20.686s	128 Laps
2.	Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso	1m21.413s	106 Laps
3.	Jenson Button McLaren	1m21.450s	105 Laps
4.	Rubens Barrichello Williams	1m21.975	101 Laps
5.	Felipe Massa Ferrari	1m22.344s	115 Laps
6.	Vitaly Petrov Renault	1m22.523s	68 Laps
7.	Adrian Sutil Force India	1m22.606s	61 Laps
8.	Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing	1m23.123	51 Laps
9.	Jarno Trulli Lotus	1m25.059s	102 Laps
10.	Kamui Kobayashi Sauber	1m26.216s	105 Laps
11.	Timo Glock Virgin Racing	1m26.305s	31 Laps