Oliver White
Ferrari has laid down its gauntlet by allowing Felipe Massa to take over from Kimi Raikkonen and set the third successive quickest time out of the three days testing held in Barcelona this week. For the previous two days, Kimi Raikkonen had been blitzing the Catalan track, but yesterday saw Massa take control and lead the field.
Only 0.3s shy of Massa was the resurgent Red Bull of Mark Webber. The team are currently enjoying better running of late, which comes off the back of David Coulthard’s superb drive in Bahrain last month. It seems the team have finally found some untapped speed in the RBR3 and are using it well. Only time will tell if all this converts into consistent race pace, but things are looking up of the ‘Bulls.
Toyota are another team that appear to have made up some ground, as Ralf Schumacher ran well on the first day, and Jarno Trulli ended his day of testing in third, albeit 0.07s ahead of Heikki Kovalainen.
Williams had a terrible day, after spending all night repairing the damaged chassis from the day before, Nico Rosberg threw into the wall on only his second lap. Rosberg was taken to the medi-centre as a precaution, but was later released without injury. Williams decided that they couldn’t continue and have returned to Grove before packing up again and heading out for Grand Prix in a weeks time.
Fernando Alonso had a better day, completing more than just an installation lap as he did the day previous. The fact he could only manage fifth was of little consequence to his adoring fans who lined the Spanish track to cheer their hero on.
Spyker have opted to not test on Thursday, having few spare parts available to them after Valles crashed on Monday. Christijan Albers managed to complete a fair few laps though and the Dutch driver is happy with the progress made on the car.
1. Massa – Ferrari – 1m21.506s
2. Webber – Red Bull Racing – 1m21.804s
3. Trulli – Toyota – 1m22.309s
4. Kovalainen – Renault – 1m22.378s
5. Alonso – McLaren – 1m22.579s
6. Kubica – BMW – 1m22.653s
7. Button – Honda – 1m22.765s
8. Davidson – Super Aguri – 1m23.027s
9. Speed – Toro Rosso – 1m23.713s
10. Albers – Spyker – 1m24.870s
11. Rosberg – Williams
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