Nico Rosberg took the baton from teammate Lewis Hamilton (fastest on Saturday) to finish on top of the table on Sunday. Rosberg’s pole time of 1:20.130 marks the end of pre-season testing.

Mercedes once again had a very productive day with 131 laps on Rosberg’s account. The German driver set the best time for the session in the morning after a brief battle for the leadership with Fernando Alonso (P2). Rosberg’s time was even 0.458 seconds faster than that of Hamilton from Saturday. It seems the two Monaco roommates will offer quite an entertaining internal fight once the 2013 season commences in earnest in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix on March 17th.

Paul di Resta could not match Adrian Sutil’s P3 time for Force India from Saturday and finished only sixth on Sunday. Di Resta’s lap was, indeed, only 0.037 seconds slower than Sutil, but the rest of the field improved significantly on Day 4. Anyway, the second year of Sutil and Di Resta partnership might also offer a fascinating German-British battle between teammates.

Kimi Raikkonen’s problems in Barcelona, on the other hand, had very little to do with the opposition or his teammate Romain Grosjean as a mechanical problem limited his running on Sunday. The Finn was back on the track after a food poisoning interfered with his and Lotus’s testing plans on Saturday. The team had only managed to record 62 laps on Day 3, which were split between junior driver Romain Grosjean and reserve driver Davide Valsecchi. A gearbox problem in the morning on Sunday, however, meant that Raikkonen ended up doing even less – 50 laps.

Despite the problems, Raikkonen still managed to finish fifth, while Sebastian Vettel who completed twice as many laps could not do better than eighth. The reigning world champion was only faster than the drivers of Williams, Marussia, Toro Rosso and Caterham. Similarly to Saturday, Red Bull’s strategists went for the harder tyre compounds and Vettel was never given a chance to fight for a top position in the time sheets.

Vettel passingly remarked that Red Bull had not managed to tick all the boxes in testing and that there has never been a less conclusive winter with regards to where the teams really are. Unless RBR are sandbagging, however, they need to put some effort to catch up with Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari as neither Ferrari, nor Mercedes has the problems that hindered them in the opening races of 2013. With the current balance of power both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton seem to be safer bets for Melbourne than Vettel.

Sunday Test Times

1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:20.130, 131 laps

2. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:20.494, +0.364, 120 laps

3. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:21.444, +1.314, 122 laps

4. Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber, 1:21.541, +1.411, 118 laps

5. Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus, 1:21.658, +1.528, 50 laps

6. Paul di Resta, Force India, 1:21.664, +1.534, 112 laps

7. Pastor Maldonado, Williams, 1:22.415, +2.285, 42 la

8. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:22.514, +2.384, 100 laps

9. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:22.524, +2.394, 31 laps

10. Charles Pic, Caterham, 1:23.115, +2.985, 116 laps

11. Jules Bianchi, Marussia, 1:23.167, +3.037, 62 laps

12. Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso, 1:23.628, +3.498, 91 laps

13. Max Chilton, Marussia, 1:24.103, +3.973, 49 laps

Sources: Planet F1, Twitter, Autosport, F1 Fanatic