Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull ended the opening day on top before Fernando Alonso piped the German to the post on Wednesday, but it was Kubica who recorded the fastest time of the week, beating his more fancied competitors to the first 'win' of the season.Felipe Massa stole the headlines during the morning session, albeit for the wrong reasons. Just half an hour and 12 laps into his first day of pre-season testing, the spun at turn five, and while he was able to collect the car, spoke billowed out the back of his Ferrari followed by flames. The Brazilian then entered into another spin after which the car came to a halt, Massa promptly exited the vehicle and the marshals will called to extinguish the blaze.
The patched up F150 did make an appearance later in the day, and having failed to impress for much of the afternoon, Massa posted a 1:14.073 late in the session to end the day fifth fastest.
After two days fraught with problems, matters look to be improving for Mercedes GP, with Schumacher posting the third fastest time of the morning session with a 1:14.537, 0.108 faster than team-mate Nico Rosberg's quickest lap yesterday.
Despite a long run in the afternoon, the German was unable to better his time, finishing the day as the in a disappointing ninth spot.
Kubica and Sutil were joined by Jenson Button and Mark Webber in breaking the 1:14 mark, with the later pair both putting in more than 100 laps. Webber endured a medicore start to the day in which he was unable to replicate the pass produced by Sebastian Vettel on the first two days at Valencia. However, with a reduced fuel load, the Australia improved in the afternoon to post a fastest lap of 1:13.936.
Button was there or thereabouts throughout the day, and will be happy to have recorded a 1:13.553 during his lengthy spell out on the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Sutil was the fastest man on track after the morning's running, following the lead set by Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta on previous days by showing there is plenty of life left in the VJM03.
But while Sutil impressed in a 2010 model, Robert Kubica and his R31 served notice that Renault may well be on their way to narrowing the gap to the top teams.
While one can never read too much into pre-season times, the Pole appeared to spend the morning gathering data (his quickest time at the interval was four seconds off the pace) before proceeding to knock Sutil off the top of the timesheets with a 1:13.144.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were again problems for Lotus, with the power steering problem that ended their day prematurely on Wednesday again an issue, with Jarno Trulli only able to complete 38 laps all of which were without power steering.
While the Italian was unable to post a lap time, chief engineer Mike Gascoyne reported that the team was able to get all their "background tests done".
Having seemingly produced a shock result on Wednesday when he registered a 1:14.472, there were no timing errors or for that matter times of substance for Narain Karthikeyan, with his HRT more than three seconds off the pace.
There was some late improvement for Timo Glock and his VR-01, with the German finishing with a 1:14.207 to beat off the Williams of Pastor Maldonado (1:14.299) and the Sauber of Sergio Perez (1:14.458) for sixth spot. Schumacher and Sebastien Buemi (1:14.801) were still further behind.
Unofficial times:
01. Robert Kubica Renault 1:13.144 96 laps
02. Adrian Sutil Force India Mercedes 1:13.201 +0.057 117 laps
03. Jenson Button McLaren Mercedes 1:13.553 0.409 105 laps
04. Mark Webber Red Bull Renault 1:13.936 +0.792 105 laps
05. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:14.017 +0.873 80 laps
06. Timo Glock Virgin Cosworth 1:14.207 +1.063 114 laps
07. Pastor Maldonado Williams Cosworth 1:14.299 + 1.155 101 laps
08. Sergio Perez Sauber Ferrari 1:14.458 +1.314 104 laps
09. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:14.537 +1.393 110 laps
10. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso Ferrari 1:14.801 + 1.657 73 laps
11. Narain Karthikeyan HRT Cosworth 1:16.535 +3.391 63 laps
Source: Planet-F1
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