Circuit de Catalunya: 2013 Testing Day One

Nico Rosberg sent Mercedes to the top of the timesheets as pre-season testing resumed at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain on Tuesday.

The German, who along with Mercedes endured an up-and-down first test of the season in Jerez, set his quickest lap late in the afternoon. At lunch time Rosberg had completed just 14 laps as a gearbox problem took longer than expected to rectify, but having rejoined the track about an hour after the lunch break Rosberg went on to complete a total of 54 laps and set the pace with a 1:22.616 on Pirelli's medium-compound tyres.

Sitting just marginally behind Rosberg was Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen. And despite Raikkonen setting the fewest laps of anyone today (because of data-logging issues), Raikkonen's best time came in the final hour of running when his E21 was fitted with the medium tyres. 

Fernando Alonso was the only driver to pass the 100 lap mark on his first day of testing in the F138. Alonso's productive day saw him finish off with a best time of 1:22.952 to edge out morning pace-setter Sebastian Vettel by just 0.013s.

Red Bull has remained secretive about the RB9 as after each run that Vettel finished, he pitted as the team mechanics pulled the screens behind the car. Vettel was fastest of all at the lunch break, but was overhauled in the afternoon, despite improving his time using the medium-compound tyre.

With the FW35's debut, Pastor Maldonado set an encouraging fifth fastest time and completed a full 86 laps.

Further down the running order, Charles Pic's afternoon came to a quick end after his Caterham stopped on track between turns two and three with a technical issue shortly after lunch, (though he still managed to complete five more laps than Raikkonen) causing the second red flag of the day. Earlier in the morning session, Gutierrez stopped following a fuel systems test.

Times

	Driver	Car	Best time	Laps
1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes W04	1:18.861	54
2.	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus E21	1:19.709	44
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F138	1:19.796	110
4.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull RB9	1:20.343	66
5.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams FW34	1:20.401	85
6.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso STR8	1:20.536	72
7.	Sergio Perez	McLaren MP4-28	1:20.699	75
8.	Paul di Resta	Force India VMJ06	1:20.846	82
9.	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber C32	1:20.864	66
10.	Max Chilton	Marussia MR02	1:21.915	65
11.	Charles Pic	Caterham CT03	1:24.176	49