BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld was fastest Thursday at Formula One’s penultimate test before the start of the season, and world champion Lewis Hamilton’s day was cut short by a low-speed crash.
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Heidfeld set a fastest lap time of 1 minute, 20.052 seconds from a session-high 123 laps as the five-day test at the Jerez Circuit wrapped up amid strong wind and rain.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished more than 0.3 seconds behind Heidfeld for second.
Hamilton was more than a second slower than Heidfeld and, after being interrupted on the penultimate day, again suffered a truncated session when he crashed backwards and damaged the rear wing of the MP4-24 after losing control due to a powerful gust of wind. He completed 58 laps of the track.
Following him were Mark Webber of Red Bull and Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima, with Jarno Trulli bringing up the rear after recording only 38 lap-times having damaged his front wing.
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“That was a short day for us,” said Trulli. “We lost the morning to the weather but in the afternoon we had a chance to try out the 2010 Bridgestone slick tyres. The conditions remained difficult because the wind was still strong.
“On one run I picked up some damage to the front wing after running over kerbs. Still, we made it through a number of runs and collected data for the future. As for this season, this test shows that things are going well for us so we can be confident.”
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