Jerez F1 testing: Raikkonen puts Lotus on top on final day

Kimi Raikkonen topped the final day of Formula 1's first pre-season test of 2013 at Jerez.
The Finn set the best time of the day on a short run with the soft tyre during the afternoon running, which was extended by 30 minutes to make up for a delay caused by track repairs around lunchtime.
Raikkonen had attacked the run from the moment he left the pits, choosing to force a way past the Caterham of Charles Pic on his out lap rather than back off to get clear track.
After the short, but clearly committed run, the 2007 world champion switched back to longer runs.
Raikkonen's lap was just enough to prevent Force India hopeful Jules Bianchi from leading the way as he bids to earn a promotion to a race seat with the Silverstone-based team.
Bianchi's lap, which came just after the track re-opened following the long stoppage in the middle of the day, also came on soft tyres.
The Ferrari junior had no chance to respond to Raikkonen's lap, as he handed the Force India back to lead driver Paul di Resta for the final two hours.
World champion Sebastian Vettel was third fastest for Red Bull on a day where he focused on long runs with the medium and hard tyres.
Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez managed to go fourth with a short run, but he spent most of his afternoon getting used to how the Pirelli tyres behave on longer stints.
A series of short runs on the soft tyre helped Jean-Eric Vergne move up to fifth late in the day, moving him ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
The Briton had a much better second day with his new team, making up for his lack of running on Wednesday due to a crash by logging the most laps of anyone.
New Ferrari development driver Pedro de la Rosa got back out in the afternoon after a gearbox problem stopped the F138 in the morning. The Spaniard completed 50 laps.

TODAY'S TIMES

Pos  Driver                 Team            Time                Laps
 1.  Kimi Raikkonen         Lotus           1m18.148s           83
 2.  Jules Bianchi          Force India     1m18.175s  + 0.027  56
 3.  Sebastian Vettel       Red Bull        1m18.565s  + 0.417  96
 4.  Esteban Gutierrez      Sauber          1m18.669s  + 0.521  142
 5.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Toro Rosso      1m18.760s  + 0.612  92
 6.  Lewis Hamilton         Mercedes        1m18.905s  + 0.757  145
 7.  Sergio Perez           McLaren         1m18.944s  + 0.796  98
 8.  Valtteri Bottas        Williams        1m19.851s  + 1.703  92
 9.  Pedro de la Rosa       Ferrari         1m20.316s  + 2.168  51
10.  Charles Pic            Caterham        1m21.105s  + 2.957  109
11.  Luiz Razia             Marussia        1m21.226s  + 3.078  82
12.  Paul di Resta          Force India     1m23.435s  + 5.287  49

WRC Sweden: Sebastien Ogier in a class of his own

Sebastien Ogier goes into leg two of Rally Sweden in a class of his own at the front of the field.
Five fastest times from Friday's seven stages placed the Volkswagen driver 31.4 seconds ahead of nearest rival Sebastien Loeb by the time the evening superspecial in Karlstad was complete.
Barring problems for Ogier, the main interest now seems to be the battle for second.
Citroen driver Loeb inched his advantage over Jari-Matti Latvala's VW up by two tenths to 1.7s on the superspecial.

But both could come under pressure from Mads Ostberg, currently nine seconds behind, early on Saturday. Once his Friday morning overheating problems were resolved, Ostberg was confident he had to pace to recover to second - although he doubts Ogier can be caught.
Pontus Tidemand completed a strong first day in a World Rally Car in sixth position, just 10s behind fellow Ford man Evgeny Novikov.
Thierry Neuville and Mikko Hirvonen shared the quickest time on the superspecial.
While Neuville completed day one in eighth position, Hirvonen's morning mistake leaves him back in 32nd overall.

Leading positions after SS8:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier     VW                    1h16m00.1s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen               + 31.4s
 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                    + 33.1s
 4.  Mads Ostberg        Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 42.3s
 5.  Evgeny Novikov      Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 1m11.7s
 6.  Pontus Tidemand     PTM Ford              + 1m22.1s
 7.  Juho Hanninen       Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 1m49.5s
 8.  Thierry Neuville    Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 2m00.2s
 9.  Henning Solberg     M-Sport Ford          + 3m25.3s
10.  Martin Prokop       Czech Ford            + 4m43.3s

Pirelli says Jerez too rough for Formula 1 tyre testing

Formula 1 teams may need to consider an alternative venue to Jerez for pre-season tyre testing next year unless the Spanish venue undergoes a track resurface, according to Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery.
Hembery claims that this week's first action at Jerez has been compromised by the surface being too rough to allow proper evaluation of tyres.
"The track is rather abrasive - and is substantially worse than last year," said Hembery, when asked by AUTOSPORT for his feelings on what had been learned this week.
"We have seen quite a lot of shredding of tyres, and there seems to be a lack of bitumen in the track, so we are looking at a very open surface.

"It has meant that what was historically an interesting track from our point of view for doing tyre compound work has proven to be probably dominated by that effect, so we have not seen the differences between the compounds that we would have liked.
"We have still seen peak performances of half a second between different levels, and the hard tyre has been working quite well considering those conditions to get through their work, but there has been this stripping action across the top of the tyres."
When asked if the track was now too rough for useful tyre work, he said: "Certainly for tyre evaluations, yes. It is a shame because the weather conditions are not too bad.
"You struggle to get anywhere above 20 degrees in Europe in February, so it is slightly disappointing from that point of view.
"But it is quite a big evolution from last year; it is so far away from anything else you are going to see in terms of macro."
Force India's Paul di Resta said earlier this week that his outfit has been taken aback by the track data report it had been given ahead of the test.
"Jerez is quite difficult, and demanding on tyres," he said. "When we saw the Pirelli report this morning we were quite surprised to see how much the track has roughed up over the last year."

Jerez F1 testing: Felipe Massa stays ahead on day three

Felipe Massa's morning benchmark was enough to ensure Ferrari ended on top on a day when reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel got his first taste of Red Bull's RB9.
The Brazilian set the fastest time seen so far this week at Jerez when he broke the 1m18s barrier during a short run on soft tyres.
His 1m17.879s wasn't threatened in the afternoon, with only Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes W04 able to get within one second of the time.

Three different cars - McLaren, Lotus and now Ferrari - have topped the opening three days.
Rosberg provided a welcome relief to the setbacks Mercedes had suffered on days one and two by racking up 148 laps, comfortably the most of any driver.
The German had been forced to cut short his day one programme due to electrical issues, while a rear-brake issue caused Hamilton's debut test for Mercedes to end early and in the barriers.
Vettel also broke into triple figures in the lap count, while an afternoon improvement was enough to send him into third overall.
Kimi Raikkonen, like Vettel getting his first taste of his team's 2013 car, improved in the afternoon session and finished just over one tenth of a second down on the triple world champion.
On his first day in the Toro Rosso STR8, Jean-Eric Vergne finished fifth, just ahead of Force India's simulator driver James Rossiter.
Rossiter managed 42 laps in the morning before handing over to Paul di Resta, whose programme was then derailed after just seven laps due to an exhaust issue.
Jenson Button, who brought about a premature end to the day when he stopped out on track between Turns 7 and 8, was seventh ahead of Sauber's new signing and F1 rookie Esteban Gutierrez.
The Mexican was the day's second busiest driver with 110 laps.
Several late improvements helped carry Max Chilton into ninth, above Williams's new signing Valtteri Bottas and Caterham's Charles Pic.
Today's times:

Pos  Driver              Team            Time                Laps
 1.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari         1m17.879s           85
 2.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes        1m18.766s  +0.887   148
 3.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull        1m19.052s  +1.173   102
 4.  Kimi Raikkonen      Lotus           1m19.200s  +1.321   40
 5.  Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso      1m19.247s  +1.368   85
 6.  James Rossiter      Force India     1m19.303s  +1.424   42
 7.  Jenson Button       McLaren         1m19.603s  +1.724   83
 8.  Esteban Gutierrez   Sauber          1m19.934s  +2.055   110
 9.  Max Chilton         Marussia        1m21.269s  +3.390   78
10.  Valtteri  Bottas    Williams        1m21.575s  +3.696   86
11.  Charles Pic         Caterham        1m22.352s  +4.473   57
12.  Paul di Resta       Force India     1m23.729s  +5.850   7

All Timing Unofficial

WRC Sweden: Sebastien Loeb takes early lead

Sebastien Loeb claimed the early Rally Sweden lead by winning the Karlstad superspecial on Thursday night.
At the start of the second of his four appearances in his World Rally Championship swansong year, Loeb set the pace by half a second for Citroen.
Volkswagen's Jari-Matti Latvala and Qatar M-Sport Ford driver Evgeny Novikov set equal second-fastest times, with Mikko Hirvonen and Mads Ostberg tied for fourth.
Qualifying pacesetter Sebastien Ogier was in a head-to-head with Loeb, but lost 2.5s in an impact with a snow bank.
Long-time stage leader Jarkko Nikara ended up eighth on his return with a Prodrive-prepared Mini, just ahead of the delayed Ogier.
Fellow returnees Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson were 10th and 13th. Solberg did a late deal to use a spare M-Sport Ford, while Wilson is standing in for the unwell Nasser Al-Attiyah in the main Qatar M-Sport line-up.
After setting a sensational fourth-fastest time in qualifying, WRC Academy graduate Pontus Tidemand was 14th in his privately-entered Ford.

Leading times after superspecial:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car             Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen              1h34m52s
 2.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                    + 0.5s
 3.  Evgeny Novikov      Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 0.5s
 4.  Mads Ostberg        Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 0.7s
 5.  Mikko Hirvonen      Citroen               + 0.7s
 6.  Thierry Neuville    Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 1.7s
 7.  Dani Sordo          Citroen               + 1.9s
 8.  Jarkko Nikara       Prodrive Mini         + 2.0s
 9.  Sebastien Ogier     VW                    + 2.5s
10.  Henning Solberg     M-Sport Ford          + 2.6s