Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets on the third, and what should have been final, day of testing at Sepang. However, following overnight rain, which left the track wet for much of the morning, and a further downpour late in the afternoon, the test will continue for an additional day on Friday.
It was shortly after 10am, when Hamilton finally got to run on dry tyres, allowing the Woking team to progress with the plan of tyre evaluation and general development of the MP4-22 package. The Englishman lost further track-time with a suspected oil leak, but was able to complete 57 laps on the way to posting the best time of the day.
Second quickest, and building on the improvement shown by David Coulthard on Wednesday, was Mark Webber in the Red Bull. The Australian finished just 0.220s down on the McLaren.
Third quickest was Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota, who finished just 0.012s ahead of Toro Rosso's Tonio Liuzzi. The German did his first laps on extreme wet Bridgestone tyres before the Malaysian heat began to dry the track and bring wet and then dry tyres on to the car. He continued the programme of the previous two days, improving the set-up of the TF107.
Despite the heavy rain in the morning, the Japanese team was able to switch Schumacher to dry tyres around 90 minutes into the session and he enjoyed a trouble-free run. However, the rain returned with just over an hour remaining and a torrential thunderstorm effectively washed out the remainder of the day. Franck Montagny will take over the final day tomorrow.
“This morning was very wet so there was very little grip on the circuit," said Schumacher, "but as we have seen in previous years, the hot temperatures here dry the track quickly so our programme was not delayed too much. Once again we looked at set-ups for the race here, trying to realise more of the car’s potential. Today was another day without mechanical problems which is very positive and shows we have made improvements since the start of winter testing. Unfortunately we could not complete everything we wanted to do due to the rain in the afternoon but that is the same for all the teams and now we will have an extra day of testing to make up for it.”
“There was a lot of rain this morning which made the track quite when the session began," added Gerd Pfeiffer. "However, the hot temperatures here mean the track dries out very quickly so after some running on wet tyres we were able to resume our programme on dries well before lunchtime. Today was another day of set-up work for Ralf and the positive thing again is we did not have any reliability trouble. The wet track this morning and the rain in the afternoon allows the team to apply for an extension of the test and we will now have an extra day of running tomorrow.”
Felipe Massa took over from Wednesday pace-setter Kimi Raikkonen as Ferrari continued its preparations for next weekend's Malaysian GP. The Brazilian concentrated mainly on finding the best set-up for the car, both in the wet and in the dry.
Nico Rosberg took over from Alexander Wurz, the German finishing sixth quickest, albeit over a second off Hamilton's pace.
"Nico was able to trial the car in damp conditions, which helped give us some important data for the race," said Test Team Manager Tim Newton. "While acclimatising to the extreme humidity on his first day of testing, Nico concentrated on brake, aero and cooling tests as well as carrying out systems checks. We were making good progress until the rain came pouring down again.
Jenson Button was on duty for Honda, the Englishman completing the most laps today (93), as the Brackley outfit continues to try and close the gap to the pacesetters.
Button worked on improving the mechanical set-up of the car in the afternoon session alongside the planned aero programme. He completed one long run before the afternoon downfall which soaked the track once again, therefore he switched to wet tyres for two further short runs.
Just 0.134s down on Button was fellow-Englishman Anthony Davidson, at the wheel of the Super Aguri. Davidson, having fully recovered from the back injury incurred in Melbourne, completed 44 laps.
It was a dramatic first day for Nick Heidfeld. Having completed 35 laps, his BMW stopped on track following an oil leak and promptly burst into flames. Although he had parked the car nearby the fire marshals took some time to extinguish the fire, which resulted in the car suffering major damage. Nonetheless, after almost four hours of repair work, Heidfeld was back on track... just as the heavens opened up.
Propping up the timesheets was Heikki Kovalainen in the Renault. The French team's objectives for the third day of testing were to pursue aerodynamic testing, and continue set-up work based on results from yesterday. However, the programme was delayed as the team waited for new parts to arrive from Enstone. The team on site worked to prepare the car as quickly as possible, but Kovalainen only completed a total of 20 laps during the day.
