Morning: Fernando Alonso has set the fastest time this morning in Montmeló, with a 1:22.875 in soft tyres. Ferrari’s been working on short stints this morning. Pastor Maldonado (Williams) has been the driver who’s done more laps, doing a race simulation (66 laps and 3 pit stops). No red flags this morning, most teams have been working again on aerodynamics and short stints. Marussia and Caterham finished on the bottom of the time table, quite far from the other teams, who’ve been doing similar times.
Afternoon: In the afternoon, almost all the teams have done a lot of laps, most of them in long stints, including race simulations in Lotus, Red Bull and Williams again (but with Valtteri Bottas this time). It is difficult to say which of the teams is better at this point, but maybe Red Bull and Lotus look a bit ahead of the others right now (at least we could say that their level is not bad). On the other hand, Williams and Force India (with Adrian Sutil back in F1, we’ll see if it’s to stay or not) seem to have a lot to improve yet.
No long stints for Ferrari today in spite of having set the fastest time. They’ve focused on checking the car perfomance in short stints. It is difficult to conclude something about McLaren today, they’ve been setting irregular times. Marussia, with only 53 laps done, has finished again ahead of Caterham, but far from the rest of the teams. It doesn’t look like they we’ll be able to surprise this season.
Good time for Sauber with Hulkenberg finishing 2nd, while Toro Rosso seemed to be a bit lost today. Mercedes had some problems in the morning, but Rosberg has been able to do quite a lot of laps in the afternoon.
Pos | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
1 | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 97 | 1:21.875 |
2 | N. Hulkenberg | Sauber | 91 | 1:22.160 |
3 | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 119 | 1:22.188 |
4 | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 108 | 1:22.611 |
5 | P. Maldonado | Williams | 79 | 1:22.675 |
6 | V. Bottas | Williams | 68 | 1:22.826 |
7 | J. Button | McLaren | 71 | 1:22.840 |
8 | A. Sutil | Force India | 78 | 1:22.877 |
9 | M. Webber | Red Bull | 108 | 1:23.024 |
10 | J. E. Vergne | Toro Rosso | 106 | 1:23.366 |
11 | M. Chilton | Marussia | 58 | 1:25.690 |
12 | G. van der Garde | Caterham | 93 | 1:26.329 |
Bad weather is expected for tomorrow, remember you’ll be able to follow tomorrow’s session here.