Formula 1 Third Test: Times from Day 4 at Barcelona

Sunday was the fourth and final day of the third test at the Circuit de Catalunya.  This was the last chance for the teams to run their cars before the first race weekend in Melbourne, just two weeks away.

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Kamui Kobayashi, Nico Hulkenberg and Vitaly Petrov replaced their teammates.  Pastor Maldonado returned to share the Williams with Bruno Senna, while Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo had a second day of running.

The fastest time of the day was set by Raikkonen for Lotus.  His 1:22.030 was the best time around this circuit over the eight days of testing, and is eight-tenths of a second slower than the benchmark set by Michael Schumacher before the 2011 season.

#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	1:22.030	121
02	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:22.250	115
03	Bruno Senna	Williams	1:22.296	53
04	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:22.312	101
05	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1:22.386	72
06	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:22.430	115
07	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	1:22.795	101
08	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:22.939	100
09	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1:23.347	48
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:23.393	100
11	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:23.608	23

It's unlikely we'll see that again this season, so get your screenshots while you can.

Sebastian Vettel went off the track early in the session, damaging the front wing of his Red Bull.  The car then developed gearbox issues, leaving the German on just 15 laps for most of the day, and in the very unusual position of last on the timesheets.

By the time it was fixed, only nine minutes of the session remained, and a sprinkling of rain prevented Vettel improving his time.  More importantly, it also left the new upgrades on the Red Bull relatively untested.

Elsewhere, Lotus have topped the timing screens with surprising regularity—Grosjean on the first two days and Raikkonen on the last.  The car looks impressive on longer runs too, which is a good sign for the British team. 

Caterham once again put themselves in the middle of the pack, and fans will be hoping they can reproduce that sort of form when it matters. 

Overall, this final day was more of the same, long runs and practice pit stops dominating the schedules.  While everyone put in an OK  lap, the true pace of the top cars remains a mystery. 

But this is preseason testing, so that's exactly what we were expecting, isn't it?

The first practice session for the Australian Grand Prix runs from at 12:30-14:00 local time on Friday 16th March.

Formula 1 third test—times from Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.