Sergio Perez of Sauber set the pace on the second-to-last day of testing before the new Formula One season gets under way.

The Mexican driver steered his way to a fastest lap of 1 minute, 22.094 seconds at the Catalunya Circuit before rain showers slowed down the Saturday afternoon session.

“I am very happy with how my final test day went,” Perez said.

“We did an intensive program with qualifying and race preparation, which was important to do. I think we have demonstrated that the car has developed well over the testing period.

“Also, personally, I feel ready for Melbourne.”

McLaren’s Jenson Button came in just 0.009 seconds behind Perez even though his car also had problems with its hydraulics during the session.

“It was nice to drive the new package, and I have a good feeling about it, but I need to work with it for a bit longer to find the right balance for it,” Button said.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso was third, focusing on his car’s aerodynamics in the morning and putting it through full race simulations later.

“I enjoyed the race simulation and we treated it like a real race when the rain came, with my engineer asking me on the radio to make the call about when to come in for tyres and which ones to fit,” Ricciardo said.

“So it was good to have to make decisions and also to experience Pirelli’s intermediates and rain tyres.”

Mark Webber tried out Red Bull’s latest modification to this season’s car and finished with the eighth fastest time, while trouble with the steering left Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus as the slowest of the 10 drivers.

“We had a new chassis for Mark today with some development parts on board,” Red Bull race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam said.

“Unfortunately, because of the rain we had we didn’t get to complete all of the program.”

World champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull will take the wheel on Sunday’s final test along with Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

The season opens at the Australian Grand Prix on March 18.