Nico tops Day 3 at Circuit De Catalunya, Barcelona

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Third of the Four Official Formula One Pre - Season Testing - Circuit De Catalunya, Barcelona Test
Day Three

Nico Rosberg sets the fastest time on Day 3 for Mercedes GP. There are very high expectations from Petronas Mercedes GP.
Position
Name
Team
Car
Lap Time
Laps Covered
1 Nico Rosberg
Mercedes
MGP W02
1min 23.168sec 92
2
Vitaly Petrov
Renault
R31
1min 23.463sec 93
3
Lewis Hamilton
Mclaren
MP4-26
1min 23.858sec
93
4
Pastor Maldonado
Williams
FW33
1min 24.815sec 60
5 Mark Webber
Red Bull RB7
1min 24.995sec
139
6
Jarno Trulli
Lotus
T128
1min 25.454sec
48
7
Sergio Perez
Sauber
C30
1min 25.557sec 115
8
Adrian Sutil
Force India
VJM04 1min 25.720sec 102
9
Sebastian Buemi
Toro Rosso
STR6
1min 26.155sec 31
10
Felipe Massa
Ferrari
F150th Italia
1min 26.508sec
123
11
Timo Glock
Virgin
VR-02
1min 26.598sec
97
12 Giorgio Mondini
HRT
F111(2010)
1min 28.178sec 39
13
Daniel Ricciardo
Toro Rosso
STR6
1min 28.329sec 42
14 Narain Karthikeyan
HRT
F111(2010)
1min 30.722sec 32

The German driver Nico Rosberg set himself apart with a late run of 1 minute, 23.168 seconds on Sunday at the Circuit De Catalunya in northeastern Spain.

"We made good progress in understanding the car and the tires, and the reliability was solid once again," Rosberg said.

Renault's Vitaly Petrov was 0.295 seconds behind, and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton had the third fastest lap of 1:23.858.

Pastor Maldonado was encouraging fourth in the times for Williams on his first day in Barcelona, despite a spin in the damp conditions and some technical issues with the FW33.

Mark Webber, fifth in the times, was satisfied with massive 139 laps completed on track “Today went well, with nearly 140 laps completed, and you can’t complain about that. Obviously, we now have a lot of data to digest and we’re learning a huge amount about this car and how to get the best from it. It was damp all morning and that meant we had a pretty condensed program this afternoon but we got through it well and, I have to say, the car ran really, really well.”

Water leaks again hampered Lotus, but the car showed good pace as Jarno Trulli took sixth ahead of Perez and Force India's Adrian Sutil.

Toro Rosso running was shared between test driver Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastien Buemi. Ricciardo was a star of the morning, setting a very impressive pace on slicks during the changeover in conditions. He was only narrowly beaten by Hamilton as the lunchbreak began, leaving him 13th in the end-of-day times having not run in fully dry conditions. Buemi was ninth after his 31 laps.

Hispania also split its running between two drivers. Narain Karthikeyan, Indian Driver, was well up among the established teams in the mixed wet/drying conditions of late morning, though he was last in the order in the end having sat out the afternoon so that Giorgio Mondini - a former Midland test driver - could make a Formula 1 return.