Magnussen keeps McLaren on top on day 3, Red Bull woes continue

Kevin Magnussen ensured that McLaren stayed on top on day 3 of Jerez pre-season test by clocking a laptime of 1m23.276s.

Meanwhile, Red Bull problems that aggravated yesterday intensified today with Daniel Ricciardo managing just three laps around Circuit de Jerez. To make matters worse, the Australian driver stopped on track on his opening installation lap with smoke coming out of his RB10.

In light of this issue, Red Bull confirmed in a statement that their “issues were similar to yesterday’s,” signalling that problems related with Renault power units and their installation are still not solved. However, with their sister team Toro Rosso managing 30 laps, some problems are bound to be specific to Red Bull’s 2014 challenger.”We worked hard yesterday to make the changes it was felt were necessary to overcome the problems we identified and we were hopeful of a more successful day today,” Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said. “Unfortunately, the measures we took only partially solved the issue and, as with yesterday, it’s more sensible to stop and dig deeper into finding a solution.”

Felipe Massa was second fastest in his first outing with Williams – half a second slower than the benchmark set by Kevin Magnussen.

Lewis Hamilton returned to the Mercedes cockpit today after handing over his car to Nico Rosberg on Wednesday. The 2008 world champion completed 62 laps today with the fastest time of 1 minute and 23.952 seconds. His former teammate, Jenson Button, who drove the MP4-29 in the morning, before paving way for Magnussen in the afternoon was fourth fastest. Fernando Alonso managed solid mileage on his first outing with F14 T as he finished fifth in the time sheets with 1 minute and 25.495 seconds. Force India had a troubled day at the office with returnee Nico Hulkenberg just managing 17 laps of the circuit. Adrian Sutil, who took his place at Sauber, spun on track due to an apparent loss of tyre temperature.“I accelerated out of the corner, shifting up from third to fourth on a straight line, and suddenly the car snapped and I went off,” Sutil told reporters after the session.Marussia MR03 finally made its debut late in the afternoon and completed five laps – two more than defending world champions Red Bull.