Barcelona Test Day 4: Hamilton Tops Rain Interrupted Final session

Lewis Hamilton ended the first Barcelona test by topping the time sheets on a wet day, ahead of Jenson Button and Jean-Eric Vergne.

The final day of the test was heavily interrupted by rain that had been threatening throughout the week. During the couple of hours of respite from the poor conditions there was a chance to sort out today's final order and as expected times swapped constantly, with a drying track giving a number of cars a chance at the top spot.

Ultimately, it was Hamilton who found the most time at the start of a sixteen lap run on medium tyres; in keeping with Mercedes’ form this week he set his fastest time at the beginning of a lengthy stint.

"I can feel that we have a good foundation with this car but there is still a lot to learn and we know that the name of the game is to improve our downforce," said Hamilton.

Vergne, who was the only driver to use the soft tyre, highlighted how far todays times were off those from earlier in the week as he lapped 7/10ths slower than he managed yesterday, where he ended the day tenth fastest.

Rain fell once again just before the lunch break ensuring that the rest of the day would be spent on grooved tyres. This gave us the first chance to see the new cars in full wet conditions, but times were difficult to compare as teams set about their own data gathering and pit stop practice regimes. The rain eased in the final hours with cars lapping on the intermediate compound, but times never came within fifteen seconds of dry times.

Williams and their new FW35 have been making up for lost time after using their 2012 car in Jerez and have shown both good pace and reliability. Like yesterday they chose to split the day with Valtteri Bottas driving this morning before handing over to Pastor Maldonado for the final three hours of the test. However, neither set a flying lap time instead conducting a number of in/out laps for pitstop practice.

Today offered little chance for Jules Bianchi to prove his worth to Force India, and therefore we may see Bianchi and Adrian Sutil sharing the first day of next weeks test in order to decide who will fill the final seat on this years grid.

The positive from the test was that the teams had a chance to test the new Pirelli wet tyre, which was high on everyone's wish list ahead of the start of the new season. Now they have a sense of the crossover point from wet to intermediate to dry and a sense of the performance of the revised wet tyre, which was the weakest of the Pirelli tyres last season.

Analysis of what we have learned from the first Barcelona test will follow.

Barcelona Test Day 4

1. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m23.282 53 Laps

2. Jenson Button McLaren 1m23.633 +0.351 70

3. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1m24.071 +0.789 80

4. Jules Bianchi Force India 1m25.732 +2.450 61

5. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1m26.239 +2.957 96

6. Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1m27.429 +4.147 50

7. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m27.553 +4.271 80

8. Mark Webber Red Bull 1m27.616 +4.334 64

9. Max Chilton Marussia 1m29.902 +6.620 51

10. Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m34.800 +11.518 41