Circuito de Jerez: Testing Day Three

Third day of testing and third driver to take the fastest lap. Nico Rosberg came out on top in Jerez on day three with a 1:17.613 on his last lap. Although being in a 2011 spec car, Rosberg was nearly a second quicker in the W02 above the 2012 spec cars. Romain Grosjean topped the times with his E20 for the 2012 specs with a great time of 1:18.416.

Testing this year in Jerez seems to be bring bad luck in pairs. For the first two days, two red flags were brought each day. Day three was no different. In what most fans are calling the 'first crash' in the 2012 season, Jules Bianchi brought the first red flag out in the morning session. Bianchi hit the barriers causing damaging the right rear of his VJM05 resulting in Sahara Force India to stop for the day and Nico Hulkenberg missing out on his afternoon run.

The second red flag made it's appearance in the afternoon session. The second flag was caused by another rookie, Giedo van der Garde (Caterham) spun out and into the gravel. Unlike Bianchi, van der Garde caused no damages to his CT01.

Thought most fans came to watch their home town hero Fernando Alonso, on his first run, all cameras and mics were pointed at the youngest double world champion Sebastian Vettel. After 96 laps, Vettel was only able to make his way up the time sheet to third quickest before the days running came to a close.

For a full gallery of day three at Jezez, visit Octane Photo's amazing gallery here!


Times

	Driver	Car	Time	Laps
1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes W02	1:17.613	118
2.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus E20	1:18.419	117
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull RB8	1:19.297	96
4.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren MP4-27	1:19.464	80
5.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso STR7	1:19.734	79
6.	Sergio Perez	Sauber C31	1:19.770	48
7.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F2012	1:20.412	67
8.	Bruno Senna	Williams FW34	1:21.293	125
9.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham CT01	1:23.324	74