Circuito de Jerez: 2013 Testing Day Three

Felipe Massa topped the time-sheets on day three of pre-season testing in Spain. The Ferrari driver’s best lap, recorded before lunch, was the quickest that anyone has managed around Jerez this week.

The Brazilian, who will hand the F138 over to new Ferrari test driver Pedro de la Rosa tomorrow, completed 85 laps today to add to the 142 he accumulated over the first two days of running.

Massa’s nearest rival was Nico Rosberg who set about making up for lost time in the Mercedes after its issues this week. Rosberg performed what can only be described as an empathetic turnaround as he racked up a mammoth 148 laps behind the wheel (nearly the equivalent of two race distances), calming many fans’ nerves about the Brackley team’s early troubles. On Tuesday, Rosberg’s test day was limited to 14 laps by a faulty wiring loom and on Wednesday, his teammate Lewis Hamilton crashed out after a suffering the loss of rear brake pressure. However, Rosberg put Mercedes on the road to recovery with an impressive lap count and a best time of 1:18.766.

Making his first appearance behind the wheel this year was reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel. The German recorded 101 laps in a reliable-looking Red Bull RB9 (one more than team mate Mark Webber managed yesterday). Vettel ended the day 1.173 secs off Massa’s pace-setting lap of one minute 17.879.

Kimi Raikkonen, who like Vettel, was getting his first taste of his team’s 2013 car, improved in the afternoon session and finished just over one tenth of a second down on the triple world champion. With the Finn set his fastest lap of the day in the afternoon before a clutch problem halted progress.

Fifth went to Jean-Eric Vergne at the end of his first day in the Toro Rosso STR8, despite at one point stopping at the end of the pitlane, with Force India tester James Rossiter recovering from an early tangle with one of his own mechanics in the pitlane to claim sixth on his morning in the VJM06. Rossiter did, however, manage 42 laps in the morning session before handing it over to Paul di Resta (whose run was derailed after just seven laps due to an exhaust issue).

Jenson Button completed a number of long runs late in the day for McLaren en-route to the seventh fastest time, but he never threatened to get near his quickest time from Tuesday and after completing 83 laps, he brought out a red flag that ended the day’s running four minutes early.

On a week of firsts and débuts, the young Mexican, Esteban Gutierrez, became the latest driver to take part in his first practise of his F1 career. The new Sauber driver put on a respectful 110 more laps on the C32.

Several late lap improvements helped lift Max Chilton into ninth, above Williams’s rookie Valtteri Bottas and Caterham’s Charles Pic.

Times

	Driver	Car	Best time	Laps
1.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari F138	1:17.879	85
2.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes W04	1:18.766	148
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull RB9	1:19.052	102
4.	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus E21	1:19.200	40
5.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso STR8	1:19.247	85
6.	James Rossiter	Force India VJM06	1:19.303	42
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren MP4-28	1:19.603	83
8.	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber C32	1:19.934	110
9.	Max Chilton	Marussia MR02	1:21.269	78
10.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams FW34	1:21.575	86
11.	Charles Pic	Caterham CT03	1:22.352	57
12.	Paul di Resta	Force India VJM06	1:23.729	7