Valencia Test Day 3

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First of the Four Official Formula One Pre - Season Testing - Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia Test

Day Three

Robert Kubica topped the time sheets as only 12 drivers tested on Day 3 with Adrian Sutil of Force India drove brilliantly to be second fastest with VJM03.

Position	Name	Team	Car	Lap Time	Laps Covered
1	Robert Kubica	Renault	R31	1min 13.144sec	95
2	Adrian Sutil	Force India	VJM03(2010)	1min 13.201sec	117
3	Jenson Button	Mclaren	MP4-25(2010)	1min 13.553sec	105
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull	RB7	1min 13.936sec	105
5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	F150	1min 14.017sec	80
6	Timo Glock	Virgin	VR01 (2010)	1min 14.207sec	114
7	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	FW33	1min 14.299sec	101
8	Sergio Perez	Sauber	C30	1min 14.458sec	103
9	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	MGP W02	1min 14.537sec	110
10	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso	STR6	1min 14.801sec	73
11	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	F110(2010)	1min 16.535sec	63
12	Jarno Trulli	Lotus	T128	1min 31.477sec	38

Robert Kubica was 2 tenths of a second faster than Fernando Alonso fastest time on Wednesday.

Robert Kubica: “I think we can split the day into two halves because we had some problems in the morning and we only managed to do our first real run about 1:30pm. But, after we solved the issues with the car, we managed to do a bit of set-up evaluation and some tyre work. However, because of the time we lost this morning we didn’t complete the laps we targeted, but it’s better to get any reliability issues with the car during testing, rather than when we get to the first race in Bahrain.”

Adrian Sutil was in the Force India VJM03 first time after November and was second quickest with only 6hundredths of a second slower to Robert. McLaren Jenson Button was third. Unlike Kubica in the new R31, both Sutil and Button were behind the wheel of interim 2010 cars, sampling the new Pirelli tyres ahead of the launch of their new cars. Sutil completed 117 laps, Button 105. McLaren will launch their new car in Berlin on Friday.

“It was an interesting day and a new experience for me to try the Pirellis,” said Button. “They obviously work in a different way to last year’s tyres - but most of my runs were reasonably good. I was quite happy with the way the car was working; we did a lot of good work on set-up. We’re moving in the right direction. There’s degradation - but you’ll find that on any tyre - particularly on the super-soft tyre, but that’s to be expected.”

Red Bull’s Mark Webber was the next runner in a 2011-spec car. Webber finished fourth in the reigning world champions' new RB7. The fifth-fastest driver was Felipe Massa who tasted Ferrari F150 for the first time. The third and final day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro began with a technical problem this morning, when a pipe broke leading to a heavy loss of oil during the first run of the day, which meant the Brazilian had to endure a long period of inactivity in the garage Only after four hours of race halt, he was able to join again. Massa still managed to complete 80 laps non-stopping till the end of the day.

Timo Glock occupied sixth slot for Virgin, ahead of Pastor Maldonado in the Williams.

Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher was back behind the wheel of the MGP W02. He completed 110 laps and finished ninth.

Michael Schumacher: “We were able to achieve a lot of valuable mileage and it was a positive day. I am pleased with that, and with how the car was behaving. Again, of course, this is not our final race car for the season but a lot of elements have already proved to be a significant step forward. I felt totally comfortable in the car immediately and noticed how much I had missed driving since November. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and this week gives us a very good idea of where we should concentrate our work. I look forward to going to Jerez now.”

Thursday’s final runner was Jarno Trulli, who took his first spin in the T128. Without any power steering on the car - following Wednesday’s failure - Trulli only managed to run through installation laps, without setting a meaningful time. Luckily, unlike their rivals, the team have another test day ahead of them on Friday as they did not join the test until Wednesday.

Testing ends at Valencia on Thursday, waiting for Jerez on Feb 10 with Force India VJM04, Mclaren MP4-26 and Virgin VR-02 as the newly launched will be on track.