Following more overnight rain, overcast conditions greeted the twelve teams in the morning, and with the sun struggling to break through until about lunchtime, this afforded them all plenty of mileage on Pirelli’s wet tyres.

The conditions created problems for several drivers, with Felipe Massa not surprisingly suffering a couple of spins in his Ferrari. Rookie drivers Sergio Pérez and Pastor Maldonado also suffered in the conditions, although neither caused any damage to their respective cars.

By the afternoon, just a few damp patches remained on track, and Rosberg’s best effort came in the final fifteen minutes of the day with a qualifying-style run to post a 1:23.168. On his longer stints – some up to around 15 laps long – he had lapped consistently in the 1m29s to 1m30s range.

Third-quickest was Hamilton, whose McLaren suffered with yet more reliability issues in the morning, which forced him to abandon any hopes of completing a race simulation. Once the car was running, however, he was not surprisingly quick – fastest when the conditions were becoming drier – and lapped with a similar pace to Rosberg on longer runs, before he banged in a quick one on a qualifying simulation.

Mark Webber also had his first run in this test at Barcelona, and was unable to repeat the chart-topping efforts of his team-mate Sebastian Vettel from the first two days’ running. The Australian caused the final red flag of the day – bringing the day’s running to an end with two minutes to go – when he stopped on track. Unlike those ahead of him, his fastest lap came at the start of a 17-lap stint while running a race simulation.

Ninth-fastest was Sébastien Buemi in the Toro Rosso, who split his running with the team’s reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo, who was among the quickest drivers on slick tyres when the conditions were switching to a drier track – he would finish up 13th overall due to not having any running when the conditions were completely dry.

Another team to split its driving duties between two pilots was Hispania Racing, with Narain Karthikeyan running on a similar pace to the frontrunners during the changeable conditions, a feat all the more impressive given he was in a year-old, near-undeveloped car. The Indian finished last on the timesheets purely as a result of missing on on the best conditions so Giorgio Mondini could make his return to an F1 cockpit.