Driving last year’s Mercedes, Michael Schumacher set the pace as F1 testing continued in Jerez on Wednesday. The German’s time came early as Australians Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo completed the top three. Kimi Räikkönen continued to push hard, briefly going off-track on two occasions.
Once again, the rain and snow which plagues most of Europe was nowhere to be seen as conditions remained completely dry in the south or Spain.
However, it was a distinctly cooler day as ambient temperatures reached highs of 12°C (54°C) – some seven degrees down on the highest figures of Tuesday. Also once again, Heikki Kovalainen and Caterham were first to leave the pits as the green light illuminated at 9am.
The morning brought most of the action, in terms of lap times, as well as a number of firsts. Caterham ran KERS for the first time, with Kovalainen just edging Schumacher for the highest number of laps (139 and 132, correspondingly). Newly-recruited reserve driver Jules Bianchi enjoyed his first taste of the Force India, later handing the car over to Paul di Resta but still managing the day’s fourth quickest time.
No sooner had the action started than a red flag flew, with Räikkönen kicking gravel onto the racing line and prompting a brief stoppage at half past nine; shortly after, Lotus elected to change the steering rack on their new E20. At this point, Red Bull’s Webber led the way from Kovalainen, although Schumacher’s 1:18.516 came shortly after midday and would not be beaten. Mercedes will continue to run their 2011 chassis for this rest of this test, enabling both a direct comparison of the modified Pirelli tyres and more factory time for the new car.
There was a lunch break of sorts at one o’clock, with teams electing for a short interval even though the clock continued to tick down. A second red flag came out an hour later as marshals attended to a lubricant on-track, believed to be oil. Di Resta, having taken over from Bianchi, soon moved up to seventh place and then climbed to sixth, where he remained.
It was a hushed day for Ferrari and McLaren, two teams keeping cards close to their chests and revealing little about their respective programmes; in terms of lap times, Felipe Massa’s 1:20.454 put him seventh as Jenson Button ended his day one position further back, 2.1 seconds off Schumacher’s leading pace; incidentally, the German’s old car sports the exhaust-blown diffuser which has been outlawed on all 2012 chassis.
The field was completed by Pedro de la Rosa - who drove 64 laps for HRT - with Kovalainen 11th behind Sergio Pérez and Pastor Maldonado, driving for Sauber and Williams which have already suffered their own issues; in the case of the Swiss team, Technical Director James Key left the company last week, whereas the English squad was hit by a series of technical gremlins yesterday. The day was brought to a close at 5pm, with Räikkönen discovering the limits of adhesion by sliding wide and briefly into the gravel (again) at Peloqui corner.
F1 testing continues from 9am local time (GMT +1) on Thursday and can also be tracked live via the GPUpdate.net Live Test Report
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| Pos. | Driver | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  M. Schumacher | 01:18.561 | 132 |
| 2. | M. Webber | 01:19.184 | 97 |
| 3. | D. Ricciardo | 01:19.587 | 100 |
| 4. | J. Bianchi | 01:20.221 | 46 |
| 5. | K. Raikkonen | 01:20.239 | 117 |
| 6. | P. di Resta | 01:20.272 | 69 |
| 7. | F. Massa | 01:20.454 | 95 |
| 8. | J. Button | 01:20.688 | 85 |
| 9. | S. Perez | 01:20.711 | 68 |
| 10. | P. Maldonado | 01:21.197 | 97 |
| Full results | |||
| Michael Schumacher | |||
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