Rosberg fastest on penultimate winter test day
Rosberg fastest on penultimate winter test day
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Sunday, 28, Feb 2010 03:06
By Adam Leveridge.
Nico Rosberg led the way during the penultimate day of winter testing in Barcelona, which was disrupted by heavy rainfall.
The young German put his Mercedes GP W01 at the top of the leaderboard in the morning with a 1m20.686 and was able to retain his position for the duration of the day because of the wet weather conditions that struck the Catalan circuit for approximately two hours just before midday.
"We had a good day today and made some significant progress in terms of set-up which was nice to see," said Rosberg.
"We hadn't got the most out of the car in terms of performance over the last couple of days, but we made a step in the right direction today.
"We went through some big changes this morning step by step and found some good improvements.
"The longer runs this afternoon were interesting. We learnt a lot as there were other cars running similar programmes at the same time so we were able to do some comparisons."
He added: "There is still plenty of room to improve but overall we're looking in pretty good shape."
Sebastien Buemi in the Toro Rosso also made use of a dry track to go second fastest overall with a 1m1.413, which is where he remained, despite the best efforts from the reigning world champion Jenson Button who arrived at the end of day three with the third quickest lap time.
As well as the rain, the session was halted by red flags, with both Rosberg and Buemi stopping out on track having run out of fuel following their long race simulations.
The stoppage left by Buemi left teams with just over 15 minutes to play with at the end of the day, with many choosing to do last minute, headline-grabbing glory runs.
Button made up the most ground on Rosberg at the head of the times, but couldn't get within seven tenths of the Mercedes driver and had to settle for third place.
Rubens Barrichello also popped up in fourth in his Williams, but brought the session to a premature end when his car stopped out on track.
Sebastien Vettel missed a whole morning of running due to unconfirmed technical issues and the heavy rain, however the German clocked up 51 laps in the afternoon while working on setups for the opening race of the season in Bahrain, ending the day in eighth.
Vettel will share the RB6 with his team-mate Mark Webber on the final day of pre-season testing on Sunday, while Michael Schumacher will take over from where Rosberg left off.
Lewis Hamilton also takes over the McLaren MP4-25 from Button.