Barcelona II, day 3: Perez on top for Sauber

In an afternoon session filled with long runs, race simulation, light rain, heavy rain, and even hail at one point, it would be Sergio Perez in the Sauber C31 who would retain his place at the top of the time sheets and end the penultimate day of testing in Barcelona with the fastest recorded lap at the track this year.

The overall time sheet would remain somewhat unchanged from this mornings’ session as teams opted to focus on longer runs and race simulation once more, an ever emerging pattern found at testing this year. Long stints and quick runs were also affected as heavy rain and hail fell within the final hour of the day, stopping teams from running certain tests they had on the programme for the day. This wouldn’t stop a few teams taking advantage of the change of weather though, with some opting to run in the wet and gather some data from the Intermediate and Full Wet compound Pirelli tyres.

As well as finishing first overall for the day, Sergio Perez was one of six drivers today who put one hundred laps or more on the car. He would finish the day with a total of 114 to his name.

Jenson Button, whose car had rumoured hydraulics problems over the course of the day, would manage only 44 laps in total today, but a quick run this afternoon would improve his position from P9 this morning, to P2 this afternoon. The flying lap of 1:22.103 would put then McLaren within just 0.009 seconds of Perez’s Sauber, marking good pace from the car at least, and was also done on the Medium compound Pirelli, with a lower fuel load.

Daniel Ricciardo left this afternoon with the highest recorded laps of anyone, 131 in total as the day finished. Two long distance runs throughout the afternoon were brought to an earlier than planned end for the Toro Rosso team as the rain set in, but focus would then shift to pit stop practice in the wet as the afternoon came to a close. Ricciardo would finish third for the days running’s.

Felipe Massa’s Ferrari F2012 would finish the day fourth overall with 114 laps on the clock. Massa was one of the rare few who would not only brave the afternoon’s rain and hail, but would also run on the medium tyre for a distance instead of the Intermediate or Wet Tyre, which will surely collect some interesting data for the Italian based outfit.

Paul di Resta’s Force India was right behind Massa’s Ferrari in fifth, with a 52 lap race simulation coming to an end just before the rain set it, and 108 laps completed in total. There were no signs of any drive-line problems which plagued the team yesterday.

Bruno Senna would post 111 laps over the entire day and a 1:22.480 would be good enough to drop the Williams into sixth position. Senna would also lay claim to causing the one and only red flag of the afternoon’s session as he brought his car to a stop at Turn 10 on track.

Heikki Kovalainen and Mark Webber would follow with 64 and 70 laps to their names. Webber, in a newly designed RB8, would not complete any long stints or race simulation this afternoon, a maximum of five laps per stint would instead be the focus as the team opted to collect valuable data from a car which has not been run yet.

Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes AMG F1 W03 would clock 129 laps today. Another strong day reliability-wise for the team, but with a lap time just under a second off the pace, Rosberg would finish ninth for the day.

And with no change from the morning’s session, Kimi Raikkonen would again run relatively few laps this afternoon, completing just 43 over the entire day, the fewest of all 10 runners today. Slow laps and general data collection kept the Lotus F1 driver over three seconds off the pace, and tenth overall as the day ended.

Day 3 Session times and total lap numbers can be seen below. The fourth and final day of testing in Barcelona, and the final day of Formula 1 Winter Testing 2012, starts tomorrow at 09:00 CET.

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