Rain hampers Barcelona test again

Teams had hoped for improved weather conditions but rain in the morning ensured the track would be damp for the entire day.

Massa, running revised aerodynamics on the Ferrari, set a lap that was six tenths of a second faster than Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber, whose RB4 continued to lead the chasing pack of cars.

It was not all plain sailing for Massa, however, after he slid off the track at Turn 12 just before midday. There was no damage to the car, however, and the Brazilian was able to resume testing shortly afterwards.

Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer was third fastest, ahead of David Coulthard in the Red Bull Racing car and Fernando Alonso in the Renault.

Nico Rosberg ended up sixth quickest overall, with his Williams team deciding to make the most of the poor track conditions to practice pi stops.

The German completed around 20 stops over the day, as well as completing long runs, with teammate Kazuki Nakajima also putting in some pitstop practice earlier in the day.

Toyota's Timo Glock brought out the second red flag of the day when he went off the track at Turn 1 shortly after 4pm. His car kissed the barriers on the left-hand side of the circuit, but without major damage.

"That was only half a day's work for me today because the morning was too wet for us to gain anything from testing," said Glock. "In the afternoon we did some running in the wet conditions - first on heavy wet tyres, changing to standard wet tyres.

"The track conditions changed quite a lot as the track dried out but not enough. It was difficult to draw conclusions but we found a similar picture to the dry which will help us define where we concentrate our work. We have a few more days of testing to work out how to move forward so we will push hard."

McLaren had been due to run today but decided not to waste their mileage because of the weather.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:30.673   46
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:31.213   43
 3.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:31.288   33
 4.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:31.654   44
 5.  Alonso        Renault              (B)  1:31.731   28
 6.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:31.963   97
 7.  Glock         Toyota               (B)  1:32.407   33
 8.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  1:32.571   47
 9.  Hulkenberg    Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:33.102   53
10.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)  no time    33
11.  Piquet        Renault              (B)  no time     1