Barcelona F1 test: Vettel ends penultimate day on top

The German driver set the fastest time of the winter yet on Thursday morning with a 1m19.024s on ultrasofts, almost three tenths up on Valtteri Bottas’s previous best set on Wednesday.

Vettel’s effort went unbeaten in the afternoon, as the top runners all focused their attentions on completing race simulations – and it was the Ferrari driver who ended up topping the lap count as well as the times, racking up no fewer than 156 laps.

Morning times were also enough to keep Lewis Hamilton second for Mercedes, ahead of Esteban Ocon (Force India) and Daniil Kvyat, who caused the first red flag of the afternoon when his Toro Rosso ground to a halt at Turn 5 around 90 minutes into the session.

Kevin Magnussen moved up to fifth in the Haas with a best time of 1m20.504s, set on ultrasofts, demoting Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren) to sixth and seventh as neither improved on their personal bests from earlier in the day.

After his two stoppages in the morning, both caused by electrical issues, Vandoorne left the garage with around two hours of the afternoon remaining, but managed only a further 16 laps on top of the 32 he logged in the morning.

Bottas, taking over the Mercedes W08 from Hamilton for the afternoon, was eighth fastest with a best effort of 1m21.819s set on softs which left him 2.8s off the pace of Vettel.

The Finn completed 95 laps, giving Mercedes a total of 147 for the day.

Completing the top 10 were Pascal Wehrlein (Sauber) and Jolyon Palmer (Renault), who was responsible for the afternoon’s second stoppage – and the fourth of the day – when he came to a halt at Turn 10 following a power unit change.

Nico Hulkenberg was originally supposed to take over the Renault for the afternoon session, but the change of engine combined with Palmer’s problem meant he never appeared on track.

Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) ended the day 11th, ahead of Williams pair Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll, who propped up the times but managed to complete 165 laps between them.

Day 3 times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Tyre	Laps
1	S. Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.024			156
2	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:19.352	0.328		52
3	E. Ocon	Force India	1:20.161	1.137		137
4	D. Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:20.416	1.392		94
5	K. Magnussen	Haas	1:20.504	1.480		119
6	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:20.824	1.800		128
7	S. Vandoorne	McLaren	1:21.348	2.324		48
8	V. Bottas	Mercedes	1:21.819	2.795		95
9	P. Wehrlein	Sauber	1:22.347	3.323		44
10	J. Palmer	Renault	1:22.418	3.394		53
11	M. Ericsson	Sauber	1:23.330	4.306		88
12	F. Massa	Williams	1:24.443	5.419		80
13	L. Stroll	Williams	1:24.863	5.839		85