Barcelona I, day 3: Maldonado quickest on third day

As Day 3 came to a close, there were few changes on the time sheets throughout the afternoon, and it was Pastor Maldonado’s late morning time of 1:22.391 which would ultimately secure his place at the top in his Williams F1 FW34 on the penultimate day of winter testing in Barcelona.

Much like Days 1 and 2, the order of the afternoon session was for most teams to focus on long runs, heavy fuel loads and race simulation. Michael Schumacher, second place on the time sheets, and with a final time within a second of the front runner, would make the most of the afternoon’s session with a 59 lap, pit stops included, race simulation run. The seven times World Champion would end the day with the highest number of laps to his name, 127 in total, a much more reliable car than Mercedes had yesterday.

Vitaly Petrov, again plagued by issues with his Caterham F1 CT-01 this morning, was the only 2012 car spec challenger driver to improve on this morning’s lap time. A late run on the super softs would put him just over 4 seconds behind the pace set by Maldonado, but with a final time of 1:26.448, Petrov would finish dead last on the time sheets, even behind Timo Glock in the 2011 MVR-02. Petrov also completed the fewest laps of anyone today, putting only 70 on the car. Steve Nielsen, Sporting Director of Caterham F1 Team said of the day; “That was a bit of a difficult day where we struggled to give Vitaly the sort of setup he wants. He did a good job today to drive around a couple of basic issues we knew we would encounter, but those will be solved with new parts that are coming for the next test, and they should not affect Heikki tomorrow.”

Kobayashi would have an uneventful afternoon, with the team opting to focus on short runs, general data collection and aerodynamic tests. Unchanged from this morning’s quickest lap, he would finish in P3 with 99 laps.

Jenson Button had block runs this morning, approximately 10 at a time, with 74 in total accumulated in the afternoon session alone. With 114 laps complete and P4, Jenson and McLaren will hail the day as another success.

Jean Eric Vergne, Mark Webber and Felipe Massa occupied the same places as this morning. Jean Eric Vergne had a fairly quiet afternoon in the STR 7, and would end the day with the second fewest laps by a team, only 78.

Mark Webber and Red Bull’s day would be brought to a premature end when the RB8 stopped on track at Turn 8 with twenty minutes left in the session bringing out another red flag for the day. The stop would mean Webber would fall short of the century mark for the day, with 97 laps completed. A reason for the stop, at this time, is yet to be released.

Felipe Massa would also stop on track with three minutes left in the day, stopping at the end of the pit lane. Again, this would bring a red flag to the session, and ultimately the day, as the Ferrari F2012 could not be recovered with time left in the afternoon session. Citing mechanical problems earlier in the day, one could assume the hindrance may have returned.

Paul di Resta and Force India would finish the day in eighth place on the time sheets with 83 laps completed; Timo was right behind him in ninth position and a complete 108 laps for the team who are still running their 2011 challenger, the MVR-02.

As mentioned earlier, Vitaly Petrov would round off the day in the tenth and final position on the time sheets.

Day 3 final times and total lap numbers can be seen below. The fourth and final test day in Barcelona starts tomorrow at 09:00 CET.

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