• Barcelona Test Day Three

Rosberg tops times on day three

Nico Rosberg made the most of a dry track in the afternoon © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Lewis Hamilton
• |
• Pastor Maldonado
• |
• Felipe Massa
• |
• Nico Rosberg
• |
• Mark Webber

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes a welcome shot in the arm on Sunday afternoon by setting the fastest time of the week at Barcelona.

After a wet morning session interrupted by red flags, the track dried completely following lunch, allowing Rosberg to topple Sebastian Vettel's headline time set on Saturday. Rosberg's quick lap comes amid stories, emanating from Mercedes, that the performance of the W02 is not yet meeting expectations. However, Sunday was the second day of testing this year that the car has finished at the top of the pile and a promising sign of things to come.

Despite the miserable weather, the morning will not have been completely useless for the teams as it allowed them to gather plenty of data on the intermediate tyre and get a better understanding of when to swap from wets to slicks on a drying track. Nevertheless, the afternoon was when the teams really got down to business and continued the development of their 2011 cars.

Red Bull's Mark Webber completed a race simulation similar to the one team-mate Sebastian Vettel attempted on Saturday afternoon. The Australian drove four distinct stints, broken up by three race-style pit stops as Red Bull attempted to get to grips with the durability of the Pirelli tyres and the RB7's reliability over a full race distance. Combined with his morning running, Webber clocked up a massive 139 laps and more than any other driver.

Felipe Massa came closest in the Ferrari with 123, after completing some long runs of his own, but never attempted a quick lap and settled for tenth place in the standings. He had a couple of spins on the damp circuit in the morning, but the team was happy to report: "The Ferrari F150th Italia appears to be very tough and after both incidents, it was able to run again without losing too much time."

Felipe Massa on an early run in the wet © Associated Press

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McLaren also appeared to take a step in the right direction by completing 93 laps, an improvement on recent test days, and with Lewis Hamilton at the wheel set the third fastest time, 0.690 seconds off Rosberg. The team is still focusing on the reliability of the car before it starts to ramp up the performance ahead of the first race of the season, wherever and whenever that might be.

There were also some promising times posted by Pastor Maldonado in the Williams, who had limited running in the morning due to a spin and a suspected alternator problem but still set the fourth fastest time, and Jarno Trulli in the Lotus, who was sixth fastest, 2.286 seconds off Rosberg.

Meanwhile, Giogio Mondini, who last tested an F1 car with Renault in 2005, drove the HRT in the afternoon. Mondini was also the third driver at Spyker under Colin Kolles' leadership and could provide Tonio Liuzzi with some competition for the remaining HRT race seat. He set the 12th fastest time and was just over five seconds off the pace.

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