Barcelona Practice 3: Massa quickest from Raikkonen

Former Ferrari teammates Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen hogged the top two spots on the timing sheets at the end of the third free practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

It was the current Ferrari driver, Massa who was fastest with a time of 1:21.901 around Circuit de Catalunya, which was a mere 0.006 up on Raikkonen’s best.

Mark Webber was third quickest in the Red Bull, with Romain Grsojean fourth best and suggesting that Lotus have found a fine vein of pace for the opening weekend of the F1 season in Europe.

Championship leader, and winner in Bahrain last time out, Sebastian Vettel was fifth fastest in the Red Bull, ahead of Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari.

For the first time this weekend Paul di Resta was quicker than teammate Adrian Sutil, with the pair ending the one hour session, seventh and eighth respectively – faster than both the works Mercedes, of which Lewis Hamilton was fastest with the ninth best time.

Jean Eric Vergne showed that his form in the Toro Rosso on day one was no fluke by going tenth best. The Frenchman was a second up on teammate Daniel Ricciardo who could only manage 18th on the time sheets.

It is hard to recall when last McLaren were not in the top ten in any of the three free practice sessions during the course of a grand prix weekend. In Barcelona it appears that their much publicised upgrade package is not going to lift them out of the slump they find themselves in. The Woking squad dumped the new wing upgrade brought to Barcelona.

In the session Jenson Button was 12th and Sergio Perez 14th.

Williams, who won in Spain last year with Pastor Maldonado, have also not made much progress up the timing sheets despite a raft of upgrades to their FW35. Maldonado was 15th and Valterri Bottas 17th.

Spanish Grand Prix, Free Practice 3 – Saturday, 11 May 2013