Circuit de Catalunya: Testing Day Six

What started out as a bleak and weary day in Barcelona certainly did shape up to quite a time. With think fog covering the track managed to postpone running in Barcelona, the eight red flags of the day made it exciting. 

Due to the fog, the day had 30 additional minutes added on to the tail end and during that extra half hour, Romain Grosjean proved he has what it takes to be on top in Formula One. With a full 124 laps completed on day six in Barcelona,Grosjean took top spot with a 1:22.614.

Though there were eight red flags in total, two of them were caused by the same man, Michael Schumacher. The first of his red flags came out when he stopped his W03 at turn eight. The second flag was much more spectacular as Schumacher beached his car in the gravel at turn five.

Coming in third behind Grosjean's Lotus and Vergne's Toro Rosso, Sebastian Vettel gave the spectators at turn five a sight. Vettel cause on of the eight red flags as his RB8 ground to halt just before the lunch break.

"It was quite a messy day because of the fog and there were quite a lot of red flags out there so it was hard to get into a good rhythm," Vettel said. "We had our own stoppage on the circuit, but it was no problem. It's never nice to stop but we brought the car back and it wasn't a big problem. We didn't fulfil the programme entirely but I think we are heading in a good way."

Jean-Eric Vergne and his Toro Rosso was another cause to a red flag during running today as his STR07 was brought to a stop on turn eight and after the problem turned out to be engine related and fairly serious as the Toro Rosso did not emerge from its garage until the final 30 minutes.

Nico Hulkenberg brought out a red flag as well as his VMJ05 was resigned from running the afternoon session with a driveline issue. Kamui Kobayashi was also restricted running time as his C31 had a hydraulic problem. 

But the 'feel good' story of the day would have to be Caterham and Heikki Kovalainen. Kovalainen showed today the team's potential as he set a time a full two seconds fast this week to last. Ending the day with a 1:23.828, it was 1.6s faster than his qualifying time at the Spanish Grand Prix last year and a clear sign of the progress made with the new CT01!

For a full gallery of photos, make sure you head over to Octane Photo's and check out what they captured here!

Times

	Driver	Car	Time	Laps
1.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus E20	1:22.614	124
2.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso STR7	1:23.126	45
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull RB8	1:23.361	85
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F2012	1:23.447	125
5.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham CT01	1:23.828	104
6.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber C31	1:23.836	77
7.	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India VJM05	1:23.893	33
8.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes W03	1:23.978	79
9.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren MP4-27	1:24.111	65
10.	Bruno Senna	Williams FW34	1:24.925	48
11.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams FW34	1:25.801	20