F1 testing Day 3 latest: Snow had fallen, snow on snow

Today was highly unusual in the annals of F1 testing history as snow intervened preventing any meaningful running.

Pirelli displayed an F1 snow tyre in the paddock, with studs, which has been used for a Ferrari demonstration event in the past. The Pirelli Sottozero (meaning sub zero) is the tongue in cheek name. But it was only a bit of fun, F1 black humour and none of the current F1 teams was able to get anything done.

The mercury showed just 3 degrees ambient temperature and 4 degrees track.

Only Fernando Alonso set a complete lap time – while four others completed installation laps. Just 17 laps in total were recorded throughout the day.

Testing continues tomorrow, which is set to be the final day, despite the loss of Wednesday. There have been discussions about extending the test, but this is problematic due to teams having filming days booked on Friday and Saturday.

The second test could start a day early next week on Monday, but no agreement has been reached.

Judging from the first two days, no team is in serious trouble with reliability and desperate for the mileage, but all of the running has been unrealistically cold; they will all want to get as many miles in as possible next week if the conditions are more norma, not least to get the tyres into the right operating window.

"We (will) shuffle our programme around and try to fit all the work we need to do into seven days instead of eight," said Mercedes technical director James Allison. "Winter testing is always tight, but this is only because you're trying to achieve as much as possible in the time available. There's just slightly less time available now.

"During normal winter testing the track is never very representative of what happens later in the year. So it's not unusual to be trying to make the best of the available conditions and to extrapolate from them what you might expect to see in the summer. This week's weather just makes the challenge more extreme!"

Barcelona Day 3 Times.

1. Alonso (McLaren) - 2m18.545s (full wet) – 11 laps

2. Ricciardo (Red Bull) - no time set (full wet) – 2 laps

3. Hartley (Toro Rosso) - no time set (full wet) – 2 laps

4. Ericsson (Sauber) - no time set (full wet) – 1 lap