Fourth and last day of pre-season testing in Jerez. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) has set the fastest time of the day, closely followed by Jules Bianchi (Force India), less than a tenth behind the Finnish (both drivers on the soft compound). A surprising Sebastian Vettel has been 3rd, setting his best time with the hard compound.
Esteban Gutierrez (4th), one of the drivers who has done more laps (142) together with Hamilton (145, 6th), both of them doing race simulations. Vergne’s Toro Rosso finished between them. Then we find Pérez, Bottas (with Williams’ 2012 car) and De la Rosa, who’s not had an easy beginning on his début with Ferrari. His gearbox broke just on his second lap on track, which made him unable to go back on the car until the afternoon. In Pedro’s words: “I can’t know how good the car is, because I’ve focused on taking information for the work in the simulator”.
Finally we find Charles Pic (109 laps in his Caterham) only one tenth faster than Luiz Razia (Marussia), who’s done his best lap in the last part of the session. We’ll see how the battle between these two teams goes on now that HRT has left them alone in the back of the grid. Paul di Resta has been the last after taking Jules Bianchi’s seat in the late afternoon, focusing on making race stints.
Pos | Driver | Laps | Time |
1 | K. Raikkonen | 83 | 1:18.148 |
2 | J. Bianchi | 56 | 1:18.175 |
3 | S. Vettel | 96 | 1:18.565 |
4 | E. Gutierrez | 142 | 1:18.669 |
5 | J-E. Vergne | 92 | 1:18.760 |
6 | L. Hamilton | 145 | 1:18.905 |
7 | S. Pérez | 98 | 1:18.944 |
8 | V. Bottas | 92 | 1:19.851 |
9 | P. de la Rosa | 51 | 1:20.316 |
10 | C. Pic | 109 | 1:21.105 |
11 | L. Razia | 82 | 1:21.226 |
12 | P. di Resta | 49 | 1:23.435 |
More pre-season testing in two weeks, but see you in Barcelona this time!