Jerez, Day 3: Rosberg fastest on Day 3 at Jerez

For the second day in a row, Mercedes 2011 W02 F1 Car finished at the top of the time sheets. This time, it was the turn of Nico Rosberg, who put an amazing 118 laps on the car in the 2011 challenger’s final outing for official F1 purposes. Mercedes will leave Jerez tonight in the knowledge that their first winter testing of 2012 was a successful three day campaign. We will now see the team again in Barcelona with their new challenger the W03, which will be launched on February 21st, 2012.

Romain Grosjean in the Lotus E20 was quickest of the 2012 challengers, keeping his second place position earned from the morning’s session. Grosjean and Lotus will also be happy with a total of 117 laps achieved on track today, giving the time valuable data, and Grosjean valuable experience in the new Formula 1 car.

Weather conditions this morning (starting with, and then rising just above, freezing) meant the teams found the morning session hard to adapt the cars too, and teams struggled for overall grip as the Pirelli compounds were slow to warm. Jules Bianchi, third driver for Sahara Force India, was caught out early when he skidded off track, through the gravel and into the tyre wall at Sito Pons corner. The damage to car was enough to put the team out of action for the rest of the day meaning Force India only achieved 2 laps on Day 3. The crash also meant that Nico Hulkenberg would not have his second run in the car for the afternoon session. The team cited a lack of parts to rebuild the car as the reason for not being able to complete the car repairs, but they hope to have the car ready again for tomorrows fourth and final test day at Jerez.

Sebastian Vettel in the new Red Bull Racing RB8 had a good day, with the team achieving just under 100 laps, and an overall final position of third for the day. Although not completely comfortable with the car in the morning, Vettel looked a lot more competitive in the afternoon, pushing the car a little harder. He will have another chance to clock more miles tomorrow when he will drive the car for the second day running.

Lewis Hamilton had a somewhat quiet day, doing just 80 laps good enough for fourth at the end of the day. Like yesterday, McLaren were looking to analyse the cars running capabilities, fuel loads and general analysis. Lewis told the media he was pleased with the days work though, even after doing comparatively few laps versus the other teams – he even ate a biscuit whilst taking a relaxed approach to interviews post-test.

Jean-Eric Vergne had a confident day in the STR7, covering 79 laps in his first day in the Toro Rosso and slotting into P5, not far off the pace of the MP4-27 of Lewis Hamilton. It was also the second day that Toro Rosso ran without fault, demonstrating the teams ability to fix whatever problem it had with the oil levels on Day 1.

Sergio Perez and Sauber F1 team had a very quiet day, taking an early (and long) lunch break, and putting only 48 laps on the C31 – the fewest of the 9 running cars today (with the exception of Bianchi’s VJM05).

Alonso, in his first day in the Ferrari F2012, had a very low-key day in Jerez. Plagued by a hydraulics problem, the Ferrari spent over 90 minutes in the garage this morning as the team repaired the problem. Alonso then spent much of the afternoon coming in and out of the pits, regularly not even completing one timed lap before returning to the garage for setup changes.

In his first proper day in the new Williams FW34, Bruno Senna had a busy day on track, completing the highest number of laps of all runners, a whopping 125 in total. Although he finished the day second slowest of the pack in P8, and over three and a half seconds off the front runners pace, Williams F1 (like many others) were quick to stress to their Twitter followers “there is a lot of working going on today so it’s not all about going for flat out laptimes”.

Giedo van der Garde in the Caterham F1 CT01 brought up the rear of the pack, and bar a minor trip through the gravel in the mid-afternoon of the session, had a fairly successful day on the track. The rookie completed 74 laps in total, posting a best overall time of 1.23:324. Caterham used Day 3 to once again focus on testing their newly introduced [to the car] KERS system, and were impressed with the youngsters efforts – “A good first day for Giedo and a decent way to introduce himself to the team” Riad Asmat, Caterham Group CEO later told the media. Jarno Trulli will now take the car for its final day of winter testing in Jerez tomorrow.

The fourth and final day of Winter Testing’s first session in Jerez starts tomorrow at 09:00 CET, with only 9 teams taking part – all with 2012 challengers.

Day 3 final times and lap numbers can be seen below.

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