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F1: Rosberg And Mercedes Sets The Pace In Barcelona
Barcelona winter testing concludes with Nico Rosberg fastest...
Adam Cooper  | http://www.speedtv.com  |  Posted March 03, 2013   Barcelona (ESP)
Mercedes GP's German driver Nico Rosberg drives during the Formula One test days at Catalunya's racetrack in Montmelo, near Barcelona, on March 3, 2013. (Photo: Getty Images)
The 12th and final day of winter testing in Barcelona left everyone with as many questions as answers as Mercedes again topped the times.

Nico Rosberg followed up Lewis Hamilton’s Saturday form of yesterday by going fastest as another dry day allowed teams to complete their running and catch up for time lost with the bad weather earlier in the week.
However Ferrari also made an impact today as Fernando Alonso set the second best time of the winter. The Spaniard pipped Hamilton’s Saturday time by a tenth, but was three-tenths off Rosberg’s best.

All involved concede that it’s very hard to work out what it all means for Australia and the season ahead, and the consensus is that it will be very close.

“I’m pleased with our pre-season testing program,” said Rosberg. “We have achieved a lot of mileage and I can feel that the balance of the car is good. I have the general feeling that we are in a better position than in the second half of last year but this is testing not racing, of course.

“The conditions in the first race will be completely different to here as it will be much hotter in Melbourne and Sepang, so we need to wait and see. Thanks to the team here at the track and back home at the factory for all their hard work over the last month. I hope it pays off and we can look forward to a positive season ahead together.”

Jenson Button and McLaren were a second behind Alonso in third place. The team’s sporting director Sam Michael said: “After completing over 5,000 kilometers, through dry and wet conditions, we have collected plenty of data from MP4-28A. A large part of winter testing is taken up with methodically working through many systems checks and verifying that the correlation between design and track is solid – that’s more important in modern F1 as track testing opportunities are so limited. We’re all really looking forward to the first race in Melbourne in two weeks – from the lap times we’ve seen the season is going to be incredibly close!”

Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg was not far off Button in fourth, while after missing yesterday due to illness Kimi Raikkonen returned and finished the day in fifth place after losing a lot of track time to a gearbox problem.

“I was sick yesterday and the car was sick this morning,” he joked. “It’s not what you want, but you go testing to find out if there are any problems with the car. For sure, we haven’t completed all the laps we wanted during pre-season, but that is often the case. We’ve found a few issues and we have solutions for them, which is positive.

“Personally, I felt much better today and I was fine driving. We ran through a lot of assessments this afternoon and the feeling in the team is that we have a strong basis to start the season; even if we haven’t shown that every day. I’m happy with the car and looking forward to going racing.”

Paul Di Resta pronounced himself happy with progress at Force India as he ended the day in sixth place.

“My last day in the car before Melbourne and we made the most of it,” said the Scot. “The race distance this afternoon was straightforward and there were no red flags while we were running. The weather was much warmer today and that gives us useful tire information, which we can compare with the data we have from Adrian’s work yesterday in similar conditions.”

The Williams drivers again shared the FW35, with Pastor Maldonado taking seventh spot and Valtteri Bottas ninth.

Sebastian Vettel completed 100 trouble-free laps and was down in eighth some 2.4s off Rosberg’s best, and admitted afterwards that this week had not entirely gone to plan for Red Bull Racing.

“We’re in good enough shape I think,” said Vettel. “Overall testing has been good for us and we didn’t have too many problems. But if you sum up all three tests I think all the teams were linked in to what the tires could do and at times it was extremely difficult to read the set-up changes and find a direction because the tires were always pretty challenging.

“In terms of how we did this week, well, over the past couple of days we maybe didn’t tick all the boxes that we wanted to but we have bit of time left to prepare before the season starts. The target is there to improve and we will do that. I’m looking forward to Melbourne now and can’t wait for the racing to begin.”

TIMES
Pos Driver Car Time Laps
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:20.130 131
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:20.494 120
3. Jenson Button McLaren 1:21.444 122
4. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber 1:21.541 118
5. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus 1:21.658 50
6. Paul Di Resta Sahara Force India 1:21.644 112
7. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:22.415 42
8. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:22.514 100
9. Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:22.524 31
10. Charles Pic Caterham 1:23.115 116
11. Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:23.167 62
12. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:23.628 91
13. Max Chilton Marussia 1:24.103 49

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
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