04/03/2012
NEWS STORY
As the teams break for lunch on the final day of pre-season testing, a late charge saw Kimi Raikkonen go quickest, while Sebastian Vettel, who has only completed 15 laps, is slowest.
The Finn posted his best time, the quickest of the week thus far, shortly before the lunch break, during a series of single laps runs. Earlier, the Lotus driver had focussed on runs of five laps using both the medium and soft compounds.
Second quickest, much to the partisan crowd's delight, is Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard just 0.220s shy of Raikkonen's best. Like the Finn, the Ferrari driver has focussed on shorter runs, his best time coming on the soft rubber.
Once again, the Red Bull garage is the centre of media attention, Sebastian Vettel spending much of the morning in the pits as his team worked on his car. Of particular frustration is the fact that the German has a damaged front wing, a quandary for the Milton Keynes outfit which has shipped out a new car and major updates for these final two days. This, in addition to a gearbox problem, means that currently the German has completed just 15 laps.
After Jenson Button's limited running yesterday, Lewis Hamilton, in the heavily updated MP4-27, has already completed 60 laps, and though he is sixth quickest it is widely felt that there is a lot more to come from car and driver.
The longest runs this morning were completed by Daniel Ricciardo and Bruno Senna, both on mediums. The Australian completed an 11 lap run whilst his Brazilian rival managed 10 laps. Of particular interest however is the fact that while the Faenza car dropped just in performance during its run, the Williams lost around 2.5s.
With most drivers expected to focus on race simulations this afternoon it's not thought that we will see any significant improvement in times.
Mid-Sessions Times - All Times Unofficial
| Name | Team | Laps | Time | Gap |
| Raikkonen | Lotus | 41 | 1:22.030 | 126.944 mph |
| Alonso | Ferrari | 63 | 1:22.250 | 0.220 |
| Senna | Williams | 53 | 1:22.296 | 0.266 |
| Hulkenberg | Force India | 45 | 1:22.312 | 0.282 |
| Kobayashi | Sauber | 57 | 1:22.386 | 0.356 |
| Hamilton | McLaren | 60 | 1:22.430 | 0.400 |
| Petrov | Caterham | 43 | 1:22.795 | 0.765 |
| Schumacher | Mercedes | 57 | 1:22.939 | 0.909 |
| Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | 53 | 1:23.393 | 1.363 |
| Vettel | Red Bull | 15 | 1:23.608 | 1.578 |
Check out our Sunday gallery, here. More pictures to follow.