Bahrain F1 test: Rosberg keeps Mercedes on top on final morning
Nico Rosberg topped the morning running of day four of Formula 1 testing at Bahrain, setting the fastest time of the week so far
The Mercedes driver set a blistering pace during a handful of short runs in the morning, the last of which - with a single flying lap on soft tyres - produced a 1m33.283s.
That lap is within one second of Rosberg's own pole time from the 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Jenson Button and McLaren ran as best of the rest, much like on Friday when Lewis Hamilton had been setting the pace for Mercedes.
After a troubled first day of running on Friday, Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari had a busy morning playing catch-up, with the Finn completing 42 laps and setting the third-fastest time.
New Williams test driver Felipe Nasr - fresh from the announcement of his signing last night - took over duties in the FW36, while race drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa watched on from the pits.
Raikkonen aside, the morning running was dominated by Mercedes-powered cars logging laps.
Ferrari customers Marussia and Sauber were held back by a systems issue and a chassis problem respectively, with the latter having to perform a chassis change in the garage and not appearing at all during the morning running.
The Renault-powered teams had another tough few hours, with the French firm's four teams logging a total of 39 laps between them.
Lotus's feared delays with Pastor Maldonado only amounted to 90 minutes, but the car only made passing appearances on track after that, and was spotted with lots of tape on joins in the sidepod bodywork.
Daniel Ricciardo completed one run of note in the Red Bull RB10 around midday, getting his lap count up to 13 in the process.
Caterham - one of Renault's most reliable teams this week - only managed four laps with Marcus Ericsson, who is handing over to team-mate Kamui Kobayashi for the afternoon.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m33.283s 27 2. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m34.957s +1.674s 39 3. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m36.718s +3.435s 42 4. Felipe Nasr Williams-Mercedes 1m39.036s +5.753s 47 5. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m39.258s +5.975s 19 6. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m39.837s +6.554s 13 7. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m41.784s +8.501s 6 8. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m41.880s +8.597s 16 9. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m45.094s +11.811 4 10. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari no time 2 11. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari no time 0
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About this article
| Series | Formula 1 |
| Drivers | Nico Rosberg |
| Teams | Mercedes |
| Author | Glenn Freeman |
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