Jerez Testing: Day 3 – Glock Leads Rainy Track

From Autosport.com

Timo Glock topped the times on the final day of testing at Jerez in Spain on Wednesday, with his Toyota team beginning to check out the ultimate speed of their new TF108.

The German completed 96 laps over the course of the day, despite causing a red flag in the afternoon when he ran off the track, to end it exactly three tenths of a second faster than Lewis Hamilton in the new McLaren.

Hamilton had a fairly incident-filled day as he caused two red flags, having run off the track at 10.35am and then later on at 4.20pm.

Conditions were tricky during the day, though, with overnight showers leaving the track damp in the morning, and it only dried up late in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso continued to get acquainted with his new surroundings at Renault to set the third quickest time, while Sebastien Bourdais was an impressive fourth fastest for Scuderia Toro Rosso, having topped the timesheets briefly late in the day.

Felipe Massa was fifth fastest for Ferrari, ahead of Heikki Kovalainen in the McLaren and Toyota test driver Kamui Kobayashi, running last year’s car.

Kimi Raikkonen was eighth fastest but said he was still happy about the progress Ferrari have made with the F2008.

"We improved from last year in the areas that we wanted to improve and it seems to have worked," he said during the lunch break.

"It’s a new year; we are in a similar situation to last year, so hopefully we can come out on top. Everybody is pushing each other, but hopefully it will go well."

David Coulthard completed 54 laps in the new Red Bull Racing RB4 to set the 12th best time, but his earlier talk about how the team needed to be more reliable this year came back to haunt him – as he suffered an engine failure just eight minutes before the end of the day.

Right behind him on the timesheets, Williams test driver Nico Hulkenberg had the accolade of bringing out the most red flags over the course of the day. He ran off the track at 10.10am, 11.20am and 3.26pm.

The unluckiest man, however, was Anthony Davidson, who spent a frustrating day watching the action from the sidelines.

His Super Aguri team had been hoping to receive the parts they needed to cure the overheating issues that had marred the opening day of their action. But a scheduled plane that was due to arrive at Gibraltar at midday ran into technical problems, and the components had to be flown to Malaga instead.

It was only when a team member then tried to drive the parts to the Jerez track that they found the motorway from Malaga was closed because of roadworks – meaning the test finished before the bits arrived.

Most of the teams are now heading home, although Renault will remain tomorrow to give Alvaro Parente a run as part of his prize for winning the World Series by Renault championship.

Today’s testing times:

Pos  Driver      Team                      Time       Laps
 1.  Glock       Toyota               (B)  1:19.799   96*
 2.  Hamilton    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.099   73*
 3.  Alonso      Renault              (B)  1:20.363   49
 4.  Bourdais    Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:20.407   51
 5.  Massa       Ferrari              (B)  1:20.500   85*
 6.  Kovalainen  McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.535   79*
 7.  Kobayashi   Toyota               (B)  1:20.577   53
 8.  Raikkonen   Ferrari              (B)  1:20.646   88*
 9.  Nakajima    Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:20.758   57
10.  Sutil       Force India-Ferrari  (B)  1:21.705   71
11.  Webber      Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:22.275   53
12.  Coulthard   Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:22.581   54*
13.  Hulkenberg  Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:24.023   65
14.  Vettel      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)  1:24.873   50

* 2008 car