Sergio Perez surprises Ferrari and Red Bull on day three of Barcelona tests – Formula 1 update
Barcelona day three saw Sauber topping the table, while Ferrari and Red Bull were second and third respectively. Sergio Perez posted the fastest lap time of one minute and 21.761 seconds, which critics saw as a low fuel and soft tyres lap.
Sauber’s second driver, Kamui Kobayashi talked about the surprise and said that even Hispania Racing Team (HRT) could beat Red Bull if they had a similar combination. McLaren and Hispania Racing Team missed the show as they are expected to join the testing
on Friday.
Perez posted the fastest lap time in the morning session, which remained the mark to beat for the rest of the day. He completed 95 laps in total and did race and pit-stop simulations in the afternoon session. “We have had an interesting day as we carried
out qualifying practice and race simulation,” explained Sauber technical director James Key.
Ferrari’s, Felipe Massa, was second with 0.33 offset to Perez and completed 132 laps on his last day of testing in Ferrari 150° Italia. He will hand over the car on the final day to Fernando Alonso. Red Bull’s Mark Webber took the third slot with one minute
and 22.466 seconds. He said after the race, “I think Ferrari are strong. I think we're going OK and the rest is hard to say, I haven't even looked at the times today, they're not even of interest, you just focus on your own thing.”
Following him in fourth was Williams’ Rubens Barrichello and fifth was Mercedes Michael Schumacher. Schumacher did almost 90 laps on an upgraded MGP-W02, which has a recently installed exhaust system. “We've had a very productive day and completed a reasonable
amount of mileage,” the German said.
Nick Heidfeld recovered from his flu and was back in Renault colours in the afternoon session, finishing sixth. Before Nick, Vitaly Petrov was in the car in the morning session and finally finishing eighth on the table. Lotus’s Heikki Kovalainen split the
Renault duo in seventh. He was in the car in the afternoon session before handing the car to team-mate, Jarno Trulli, who ended the day on the bottom of the table as his car faced technical problems in the morning session, confining him to the pits. Lotus
technical director, Mike Gascoyne, said that the car faced a gear box problem in the morning session.
Adrian Sutil of Force India finished ninth; Jamie Alguersuari of Toro Rosso was in tenth after completing 107 laps and Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio in Eleventh.
Testing will continue and McLaren and HRT will join the rest of the teams in the upcoming test. HRT is expected to reveal their new car. This is after the team finally completed their driver line-up on Wednesday, picking Vitantonio Liuzzi as Narain Karthikeyan’s
teammate.
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