Barcelona F1 test: Hamilton tops penultimate day for Mercedes

The weather was the best seen so far and the Mercedes driver's morning effort of 1m20.558s, set on Pirelli's soft tyre, proved quicker than anyone could manage in the afternoon. It is also the fastest lap seen at the Spanish circuit in 2013.

For some time nobody got within a second of Hamilton, but Felipe Massa eventually did in the afternoon. The Ferrari driver had several short runs on both soft and supersoft rubber.

His best of 1m21.266s on the supersoft moved him ahead of Adrian Sutil's Force India, just before a wheel came off the F138 and brought out the red flags.

Sutil, who was second fastest in the morning, ran a race simulation in the afternoon, but his earlier 1m21.627s effort was still good enough for third.

Despite delays in the arrival of new Williams parts, and his subsequent late start to the day, Pastor Maldonado ended up fourth.

He handed the FW35 over to F1 rookie Valtteri Bottas for the afternoon. After several runs on harder tyres, he got within 0.2s of his team-mate to finish fifth.

Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez was next thanks to his efforts in the morning. Like Sutil and Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, he focused on longer runs in the afternoon.

Mark Webber spent much of the day doing aero work or trying the harder tyres. After the late red flag, he had a quick run on the soft tyre and set 1m22.658s to end the day seventh fastest for Red Bull.

Thanks to Kimi Raikkonen's illness, Romain Grosjean returned to the Lotus for the afternoon and set a best of 1m23.380s for 10th spot.

TODAY'S TIMES

Pos  Driver                Team          Time       Gap      Laps   Tyre   
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes      1m20.558s            117   Soft
 2.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari       1m21.266s  + 0.708s  94    Supersoft
 3.  Adrian Sutil          Force India   1m21.627s  + 1.069s  109   Soft
 4.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams      1m22.305s  + 1.747s  34    Soft
 5.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams      1m22.468s  + 1.910s  31    Soft
 6.  Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber        1m22.553s  + 1.995s  99    Soft
 7.  Mark Webber           Red Bull      1m22.658s  + 2.100s  59    Soft
 8.  Sergio Perez          McLaren       1m22.694s  + 2.136s  101   Soft
 9.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso    1m23.223s  + 2.665s  114   Soft
10.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus         1m23.380s  + 2.822s  46    Medium
11.  Davide Valsecchi      Lotus         1m23.448s  + 2.890s  16    Soft
12.  Jules Bianchi         Marussia      1m24.028s  + 3.470s  74    Soft
13.  Giedo van der Garde   Caterham      1m24.235s  + 3.677s  126   Soft    

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