Nico Rosberg headed a mostly wet session
Nico Rosberg unseated Sebastian Vettel off the top of the timesheets in Barcelona today, as the weather again made for unpredictable conditions.
Rain in the morning forced most teams to start on extreme wet tyres. The track dried out during the day, and the final few hours allowed slick the use of slick tyres.
Rosberg focused on KERS and tyre development today, as well as qualifying simulations. He was 3 tenths ahead of Vitaly Petrov, who completed work on a new suspension and exhaust layout.
Lewis Hamilton was 3rd, and was an entire second ahead of Pastor Maldonado in 4th. The Williams driver caused one of several red flags today, as he spun in the treacherous conditions.
Mark Webber was 5th, and Jarno Trulli 6th, as the Lotus suffered yet another water leak, limiting him to only 48 laps. Sergio Perez was another rookie to have spin, and was delayed with rear wing problems, but still managed 7th.
Adrian Sutil was 8th. He led Sebastien Buemi, who shared his Toro Rosso with Daniel Ricciardo, who was back in 13th. Felipe Massa caused two red flags, ran off track several times, and finished a lacklustre 10th. Timo Glock was 0.09 seconds behind in 11th.
Hispania tested 2006 Midland test driver Giorgio Mandini today. He did 39 laps, and was 5 seconds off the pace in 12th. Narain Karthikeyan was last, 7.5 seconds off the pace.
Rosberg was happy with today’s progress:
"It was interesting running with the intermediates this morning and, although the
warm-up is tricky, we definitely improved our understanding of the tyres. Our long
runs this afternoon included some aero work in preparation for our next upgrade
package before going into lower-fuel, new-tyre running at the end of the day. We
made good progress in understanding the car and the tyres, and the reliability was
solid once again."
Times from Barcelona Day 3:
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1.23.168 92
2. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1.23.463 0.295 93
3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1.23.858 0.690 93
4. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1.24.815 1.647 60
5. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1.24.995 1.827 139
6. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 1.25.454 2.286 48
7. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1.25.557 2.389 115
8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1.25.720 2.552 102
9. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1.26.155 2.987 31
10. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1.26.508 3.340 123
11. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1.26.598 3.430 97
12. Giorgio Mondini Hispania-Cosworth 1.28.178 5.010 39
13. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1.28.329 5.161 42
14. Narain Karthikeyan Hispania-Cosworth 1.30.722 7.554 32
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