Barcelona test, (1) Day 3

It was another productive test for many of the teams. Conditions were sunny but cool for the 3rd day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya track.

(c) Octane Photographic

There were a good few familiar faces returning to the car, Massa, Webber, Button, with a few new ones too. Timo Glock made his debut at the winter tests in the 2011 spec Marussia car.

Pastor Maldonado topped the time sheets in the Williams FW34. The Williams team have been at the bottom of the timings for the majority of the test days, but this time the order changed. The Grove based team have created an incredibly reliable car, often completing the most laps of the tests. The Venezuelan driver completed 107 laps and set his best time of 1m22.391 at the peak track time, mid morning, on a set of red super softs.

The super softs were a familiar sight in the morning, apart from Vitaly Petrov who put them on for short run at the end of the session. The majority of teams completed long runs in the afternoon with Schumacher completing a 59 lap run, the longest of the test. Schumacher also finished 2nd on the 3rd day of testing, just under a second off the Williams. His time of 1m23.384 was one of 127 laps but was a good way off the WF34 pace, maybe Williams are sand bagging? Schumacher said "I'm very happy with the race simulation that we ran this afternoon. It confirmed what we have seen from the first tests with our new car, and that we don't seem to have any big issues with reliability."

(c) Octane Photographic

Two tenths off Schumacher's time was popular Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber C31. He completed 99 laps with his best effort being a 1m23.582. Just behind him finished Jenson Button in the reliable, but quick looking Mclaren MP4-27. He took over after 2 days in the car for Lewis Hamilton, and took the car round the Circuit de Catalunya 114 times. His best effort was a 1m23.918 and was the last time under the 1m24 bracket, the cars more spread out than we have seen. He said "We've done a lot of reliability work over the past three days - more than 100 laps on each day. Most of that has been longer runs, getting used to the feeling of the car over a long-run and set-up work for the longer runs."

5th was Jean-Eric Vergne. The French rookie kept Toro Rosso their reputation of being in the top 5 since day 1 of testing. He completed 78 laps in the STR7 with a best time of 1m24.433 being just over 2 seconds off the pace of Maldonado. The youngster said "It's good to be back in the car after Jerez. We got through a lot of work today, including some aero evaluation and different set-ups. We ran all day long on the Medium tyres, which gives us a good baseline to analyse the data. We are learning more about our new car with every lap and it has performed well on this Barcelona track which is always a true test of how a car is performing."

(c) Octane Photographic

6th and 7th finished Mark Webber and Felipe Massa, who set identical times of 1m24.771. Webber took over the reigns from Sebastian Vettel and completed 97 laps, before his car stopped out on track with just 30 minutes to go. Ferrari still looked like they were lagging behind the other top runners, with Massa completing 84 laps but the mid day running was hampered by an unspecified, as ever with Ferrari, problem on the car.

8th was the Force India team. Their VJM05 car took them from 1st yesterday, to 8th today in the hands of Paul Di Resta. His best time of 1m25.646 was over 3 seconds off the front running times of Maldonado in the Williams, but the times are still unclear to read. The Force India driver circulated the track 83 laps but they were concentrating on data gathering and aero. He said "Quite an intense day and a very busy afternoon, but the main thing is that we achieved the objectives for the day. There will be a lot of analysing tonight to see what we can learn, especially trying to understand the data from the long runs this afternoon. Once we've been through the numbers, it should give us a direction for tomorrow."

Timo Glock debuted at the winter test in the 2011 spec Marussia car. He lapped the circuit 108 times and set a time faster than the Caterham CT-01. His 1m26.173 was a decent time and the lap count showed the team were getting some useful data, as they look ahead to the launch of their 2012 car at the next test.

Caterham were 10th, and last, over 4 seconds off the front running pace. In the hands of Russian driver Vitaly Petrov, the team got 70 laps worth out of the car after morning suspension issues, which took a fair amount of time to sort out.

Meanwhile the next test at the Circuit de Catalunya will be the 1st to 4th of March, however it has now come to light that Red Bull and Ferrari will be testing from the 2nd to 5th of March instead. Whether this gives them advantage over the overs, to test some things in private, is unclear but Ferrari originally had the plan and Red Bull asked to join in. Ferrari, strangely, accepted. Christian Horner said "It's in the test agreement and also within the test regs. We are within the time limit for that." It is also clear that Lotus will have a private test to make up for missing 3 days of testing at the Barcelona circuit due to Chassis problems.

Barcelona test 1, Day 3 times:

Pos     Driver        Team         Time                  Laps
1.  Maldonado      Williams        1m22.391s           106
2.  Schumacher     Mercedes    1m23.384s  +0.993  127
3.  Kobayashi      Sauber          1m23.582s  +1.191   99
4.  Button         McLaren         1m23.918s  +1.527   114
5.  Vergne         Toro Rosso      1m24.433s  +2.042   78
6.  Webber         Red Bull        1m24.771s  +2.380   97
7.  Massa          Ferrari             1m24.771s  +2.380   84
8.  Di Resta       Force India     1m25.646s  +3.255   83
9.  Glock          Marussia        1m26.173s  +3.782   108
10.  Petrov         Caterham        1m26.448s  +4.057   70