Rosberg quickest ahead of the rain

Less than 90 minutes into the third and penultimate day of testing at Circuit de Catalunya saw light rain start to fall. By this time Nico Rosberg had already banged in 22 laps with a best of 1:20.686s in his Mercedes, seven tenths clear of Sebastien Buemi in the Toro Rosso and just 0.072s shy of Nico Hulkenberg’s Friday best.

With rain dominating all but the early laps of the day, the times don’t mean a great deal but the 11 teams present are hoping that the circuit will dry over the remainder of the day.

With Rosberg fastest from Buemi, Adrian Sutil is currently third fastest in his Force India ahead of Felipe Massa who took over testing duties at Ferrari, his programme originally focused at longer runs and the new aero package. However, the team stopped the programme as the rain started to fall admitting that they would gain little in the tricky conditions.

Rubens Barrichello took over the FW32 from Nico Hulkenberg today, but was caught out in the slippery conditions mid-morning when he spun into the gravel at turn five. The Brazilian veteran is currently fifth ahead of Jarno Trulli in the T127.

Lotus has opted to ‘get on with it’ and completing long runs and aiming to complete a race distance on intermediate tyres, something they aim to finish in the afternoon. Trulli is sixth ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, the busiest driver on track, in the Sauber Ferrari.

Renault are currently eighth with Vitaly Petrov handling the driving duties and plan a race distance this afternoon and a simulated qualifying run while Jenson Button’s McLaren failed right at the start of the session and his only laps have been completed in the wet.

Timo Glock has completed some practice starts in the Virgin Cosworth, but has yet to complete a timed lap, while Sebastian Vettel has yet to set a time either in his Red Bull Renault.