Massa puts fast Ferrari through its paces

7 February 2013 18:27

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was fastest at the third day of F1 pre-season testing while Sebastian Vettel made his 2013 bow in his Red Bull.

With 11 teams testing, Massa clocked the fastest time of one minute, 17.879 seconds at the Jerez course in Spain during his 86 laps to be nearly a second quicker than Mercedes' Nico Rosberg (1:18.766), who completed 148 laps - 38 more laps than the next-best Esteban Gutierrez.

Vettel was third fastest with 1:19.052 in his 102-lap stint while new Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen was fourth in 1:19.200.

McLaren's Jenson Button (1:19.603) endured a disappointing session recording the seventh best time before being red flagged after his car stopped with only four minutes left.

There were two other red flags in the session with Charles Pic's Caterham stopping just two hours into the session and Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, who came to a stop at the pit lane exit midway through the session.

The fourth and final testing session is on Friday.