Felipe Massa led Kimi Raikkonen by a mere six thousandths of a second at the end of practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver set a fastest time of 1’21.901 in the dying moments of the final hour of practice, taking the top time off the Lotus.
Massa set his quickest time on the medium tyres and earlier on team mate Fernando Alonso had been the quickest driver on the hard compound. He ended the session sixth fastest having been one of the first drivers to do his medium tyre lap.
Sebastian Vettel left his medium tyre run until the final minutes, but ended up slower than his team mate. The pair were split by the second Lotus of Romain Grosjean, who went quickest in the first sector before losing time later in the lap.
Both Force Indias were in the top ten but the fastest Mercedes was only ninth as the team seemed more preoccupied with working on their race performance. Jean-Eric Vergne was an encouraging tenth for Toro Rosso.
That left Jenson Button outside of the top ten once again for McLaren. Team mate Sergio Perez’s efforts in the much-revised MP4-28 were stymied by the loss of some bodywork when he ran over the kerb at the final corner, and a power steering problem.
Combined practice times
| Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | FP3 | Fri/Sat diff | Total laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’25.455 | 1’23.110 | 1’21.901 | -1.209 | 70 |
| 2 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus-Renault | 1’26.614 | 1’23.030 | 1’21.907 | -1.123 | 67 |
| 3 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’29.473 | 1’22.891 | 1’22.044 | -0.847 | 74 |
| 4 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1’26.042 | 1’25.851 | 1’22.069 | -3.782 | 70 |
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’29.457 | 1’22.808 | 1’22.229 | -0.579 | 62 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’25.252 | 1’22.825 | 1’22.254 | -0.571 | 70 |
| 7 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’26.755 | 1’24.104 | 1’22.574 | -1.53 | 52 |
| 8 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1’26.212 | 1’23.840 | 1’22.729 | -1.111 | 78 |
| 9 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’26.374 | 1’23.140 | 1’22.740 | -0.4 | 99 |
| 10 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’25.667 | 1’24.058 | 1’22.759 | -1.299 | 71 |
| 11 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’26.621 | 1’23.398 | 1’22.839 | -0.559 | 92 |
| 12 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1’24.306 | 1’23.151 | -1.155 | 54 | |
| 13 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’27.250 | 1’25.441 | 1’23.371 | -2.07 | 84 |
| 14 | Sergio Perez | McLaren | 1’27.135 | 1’24.854 | 1’23.373 | -1.481 | 50 |
| 15 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Renault | 1’27.576 | 1’25.321 | 1’23.385 | -1.936 | 73 |
| 16 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’27.061 | 1’25.167 | 1’23.388 | -1.779 | 80 |
| 17 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Renault | 1’26.456 | 1’24.888 | 1’23.660 | -1.228 | 74 |
| 18 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’26.940 | 1’24.175 | 1’23.767 | -0.408 | 75 |
| 19 | Charles Pic | Caterham-Renault | 1’26.930 | 1’24.775 | -2.155 | 53 | |
| 20 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’28.887 | 1’26.078 | 1’24.793 | -1.285 | 61 |
| 21 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’26.970 | 1’25.135 | -1.835 | 43 | |
| 22 | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham-Renault | 1’28.600 | 1’25.963 | 1’25.250 | -0.713 | 67 |
| 23 | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham-Renault | 1’28.373 | 14 | |||
| 24 | Rodolfo Gonzalez | Marussia-Cosworth | 1’30.314 | 13 |
2013 Spanish Grand Prix
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- Spanish Grand Prix gets lowest rating of 2013 so far
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- Ferrari join Lotus in criticising tyre revisions
Image © Ferrari/Ercole Colombo
Aldoid
11th May 2013, 11:35
Mercedes definitely intent on sorting out their race pace: both cars the only ones racking up over 90 laps so far this weekend. Hope it pays off, & that they haven’t lost much (if anything) over one lap. Otherwise, it seems pretty tight at the top… Qualies should be quite interesting.
Adam Blocker (@blockwall2)
11th May 2013, 11:51
That one lap pace will be valuable in Monaco. I hope they don’t lose too much of it for that reason.