Penultimate Day of Final Winter Testing

So what is the meaning of this? The penultimate day of winter testing ended in Barcelona today with the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg setting the fastest time, and at a very respectable 1:20.6 seconds.

“We had a good day today and made some significant progress in terms of set-up which was nice to see,” said Rosberg. “We hadn’t got the most out of the car in terms of performance over the last couple of days, but we made a step in the right direction today. We went through some big changes this morning step by step and found some good improvements.”

Still, for me the only conclusion for us to draw from winter testing so far is just how inconclusive it all is. Sure, the session was hit by rain. But will tomorrow’s fourth and final day make it any clearer?

I doubt it, and I like it that way: It means that the first race of the season, in Bahrain in two weeks, will be the real moment when we can begin to conclude anything. Although even there, I suspect it will take several races before we can draw any conclusions. And if we are as lucky as winter testing has suggested, then this will be a season little like last year’s where on team dominated the first part of the season and held on through thick and thin to the end. This year could be a real combat between Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull, Williams… and the occasional outsider battle with the other Ferrari-engined cars like Toro Rosso, Sauber and, sure, why not Force India? That’s beginning to sound like practically all the teams. And the sudden arrival of a brilliant Toyota – sorry, Stefan or USF1 GP – car chassis…?

But check in again tomorrow to see if Mercedes is on top again with Michael Schumacher at the wheel.

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m20.686s 128
2. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1m21.413s + 0.727s 106
3. Jenson Button McLaren 1m21.450s + 0.764s 105
4. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1m21.975s + 1.289s 101
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m22.344s + 1.658s 115
6. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m22.523s + 1.837s 68
7. Adrian Sutil Force India 1m22.606s + 1.920s 61
8. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m23.123s + 2.437s 51
9. Jarno Trulli Lotus 1m25.059s + 4.373s 102
10. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1m26.216s + 5.530s 105
11. Timo Glock Virgin 1m26.305s + 5.619s 31