The penultimate day of testing saw a mix of conditions as showers interupted the team’s programmes. For the second day running a Nico topped the time sheets but this time it was Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg posting a 1 minute 20.686 during a dry period in the morning before the teams concentrated on longer runs. Rosberg also topped the mileage sheets on his final day in the W01 before Bahrain, putting in a total of 128 laps. Elsewhere, others had a more problematic day: Virgin limited to 31 laps by a leaking fuel o-ring, Red Bull’s late start to the day saw them manage just 51 laps, and Force India and Renault put in 61 and 68 respectively. The updated pre-season testing statistics can be found here. The rapidly changing track conditions make comparisons difficult but I’ll take a quick look at the race simulations of McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams, Toro Rosso and Lotus.



First up Ferrari who I looked at yesterday but today Felipe Massa took over the controls. With the changeable track, I’ll play it safe and just comment on the middle stint where again the F10 shows consistent lap times as the fuel goes down but the tyres get older. Alonso ran a stint of similar length and at a similar point in the race simulation and was around a second faster – a good indicator of how much slower the track was today, after the rain.

McLaren and Mercedes had opted to stick to relatively heavy runs for the first two days in Barcelona, prompting concern among some that they were off the pace as they apparently languised down the time sheets. Today they went for a race simulation, Mercedes preceding it with a full qualifying simulation, hence Rosberg’s fastest time – regardless both started on worn tyres, a sign of confidence that they will be doing so from Q3 of qualifying. They began their simulations at around the same time as Ferrari and their early times are similarly messy. However, the middle of their three stints show a better comparison with both teams’ times falling through the run. Overall, McLaren’s times look better and the Mercedes tyres went off towards the end of the stint, McLaren opting to stop earlier. But both look like being at the sharp end of the grid come the season.

Williams look pretty good over a lap but there are hints that their weakness will be in race trim and that possibly they won’t look after their tyres as well as hoped. Lap times got slower on their first two stints, although since the first started a little earlier than the three teams above that may partly explain it, still the middle stint showed a similar effect. The third being curtailed before it could give a good indication.

Toro Rosso ran a race simulation for the second day running and there are signs that they might not be that far behind, certainly the STR5 looks like it might look after it’s tyres well, their simulation starting at around the same time as Williams’.

Finally, one of the two new teams ran a race simulation. Unfortunately for comparison purposes Lotus started their “race” much earlier in the day which meant a much wetter track. By the end of the run and back on slick tyres, they were at least 4 seconds off what the established teams were doing on similar fuel loads, although they should be given the benefit of the doubt of just how much grip the track was providing by this point. Still it suggests they could be at least a second off the pace of Toro Rosso.

So, a rain effected day, not ideal for comparison. Ferrari and McLaren had the same average lap time over their runs, with Mercedes just a tenth shy: 2010 could be a very interesting season with at least four teams in the hunt.