Romain Grosjean was, once again, the fastest driver of the day in Mugello as the three-day test session came to a end.
The Lotus driver’s best time, a 1:21.035, was 0.232 seconds quicker than the next fastest man: Sebastian Vettel.
“It was another nice day today so I have been lucky with the weather here,” said a delighted Grosjean, who added another 66 laps to the 97 he completed yesterday. “We continued to work on the car and have gained more valuable data. We made a big change to the car at lunchtime and everything went according to plan. Mugello puts high demands on the driver so it’s been a very good experience for me – and quite a workout!
We were conducting a specific programme of evaluating components, so to be quick relative to our opposition even when we were not looking specifically to try to top the times is satisfying. I’m happy at the progress we’ve made here in Italy and looking forward to seeing how well this translates into lap time when we get to Barcelona.”
Vettel had a trouble-free run today, completing 106 laps and providing his Red Bull team with plenty of data to analyse.
Fernando Alonso had an uncharacteristic off-track incident at Turn 12 this morning, which caused some damage to the front-left corner of his car, and the front wing. This cost him two-and-a-half hours of track time, but the Spaniard still managed to complete 98 laps and finish the day as the third fastest driver.
Daniel Ricciardo was fourth quickest for Toro Rosso, and the young Australian was very happy with the 117 laps he completed. Sergio Perez, who finished the day fifth on the timesheets, managed one lap more than Ricciardo, despite going off the track twice before lunch.
Force India gave both of their race drivers time in the car today. Nico Hulkenberg, who had the VJM05 for the afternoon, finished the day sixth fastest with a lap that was some seven-tenths of a second faster than team-mate Paul di Resta, who finished the day in tenth. However, after a frustrating day of testing yesterday, Di Resta was just keen to get some mileage under his belt this week.
Pastor Maldonado lost a huge amount of time this morning as his engineers stripped back his car to find rectify an electrical problem. The Venezuelan had a good afternoon though, and managed to complete 63 laps in total today.
Eighth fastest was the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg. After team-mate Michael Schumacher completed 144 laps yesterday, Rosberg could be excused for being disappointed with only managing 129 today, but said that he was pleased with the progress the team have made this week in Italy. McLaren again failed to trouble the top of the timesheets – today Oliver Turvey had to be content with just ninth on the timesheets.
The award for most lap completed today (if there is such a thing) will go to Heikki Kovalainen. The Finn put his Caterham through 139 laps of the Mugello circuit, and was happy with a ‘good day’s work’.
Timo Glock finished the day bottom of the timesheets, but will be happy with the 110 laps completed.
- The fastest lap times from Day Three in Mugello can be found here.