Barcelona Test 1 – Day 3: Maldonado Ahead of Schumacher

Indeed, when one takes a look at the timing sheet, while seeing Pastor Maldonado at the top might be pleasing for fans of the Grove team, it is certainly not indicative of what to expect in Melbourne. Although the Venezuelan has shown consistency, stringing together “fast” laps before finally setting this time around 12:35 PM, it’s possible to doubt that his performance is the best possible.

Behind him, Michael Schumacher – the most diligent on track today, with a complete race simulation in the afternoon (66 laps of the Catalunya circuit) – is one second behind, while Kamui Kobayashi – who caused one of the many red flags with a deliberate fuel shortage – is 1.1 seconds behind. A Williams ahead of a Mercedes and a Sauber.

Where are the big favorites then? Button is in fourth place, in a rather calm day for the McLaren team which hasn’t encountered any problems or, it seems, hasn’t tried to impress. Behind him, Jean-Eric Vergne: the Toro Rosso driver, more than two seconds behind the Williams, experienced a few small issues in the early afternoon when he couldn’t drive for more than an hour and forty minutes, completing only 78 laps.

Mark Webber’s Red Bull RB8 is in sixth place, as the Australian conducted a partial race simulation (still 48 laps) in the mid-afternoon, which did not raise concerns about the car’s reliability. However, he finished with a breakdown, fifteen minutes before the end of the day. He returned to the pits with a big smile for Helmut Marko, Benoit Fraikin, our special correspondent in Barcelona, reported to us. Massa and Ferrari set the same time as Webber, but the Scuderia again encountered mechanical issues in the morning and caused the last red flag for reasons still unknown.

Followed by Di Resta, whose day was diligent – after a red flag due to a lost bodywork part late in the morning -, Glock who accumulated laps behind the wheel of the 2011 Marussia, and Vitaly Petrov whose Caterham faced mechanical issues and was only able to complete 70 laps.

Private testing in Barcelona – Day 3: