Nico Rosberg emerged with the quickest time as the second pre-season test ahead of the 2013 F1 season kicked off at Catalunya.
On another somewhat truncated day for his Mercedes team, Rosberg was able to edge
Kimi Raikkonen out of top spot in the latter stages of the session – where the top times were ultimately posted.
Rosberg had earlier lost time when work on the gearbox on his F1 W04 took longer than expected, meaning much of his running came during the afternoon session.
Making use of Pirelli's medium compound tyre in the final 20 minutes, Rosberg posted a quickest time of 1min 22.616secs which was good enough to leave him just 0.007secs clear of Raikkonen's Lotus after the Finn proved to be unable to beat the Mercedes on his best lap of the session.
“We had a mixed day today with some laps lost this morning,” Rosberg admitted. “However we were able to work through a good programme this afternoon and, of course, it's always nice to be quickest at the end of the day.
“In general, I feel happy and comfortable in the car and it feels better than the last time we were here at this track. There is still some work to be done on tyre degradation and our programme this afternoon was helpful in understanding that.”
Like Rosberg, Raikkonen also suffered his fair share of issues, logging fewer laps than anyone else as the team worked on issues with the data logger on his car that meant he spent time in the garage.
Despite that however, the team was pleased with the results from the day as the Enstone-based squad set about building on its solid performance at
Jerez last week.
“It's been a positive debut for the second chassis here in Barcelona,” trackside operations director Alan Permane said. “Kimi was happy with where the car started the day, and the setup changes we've made have been positive.