Barcelona Testing – Sebastian Vettel ended the penultimate day of testing atop the time sheets whilst McLaren suffered further setbacks.
The Ferrari driver’s fastest lap from the morning session remained unbeaten throughout the afternoon.
Vettel’s 1:19.024 ultrasoft effort was the fastest lap recorded in pre-season testing so far, but with the German backing off in the final sector, it’s clear that the benchmark can still easily be beaten. He continued to register a mighty 156 laps across the day.
Lewis Hamilton set his personal best time of the test in the morning, with the Mercedes sitting three tenths away from the Ferrari.
Esteban Ocon managed the third-fastest time on the ultrasoft tyre en route to completing 137 laps in the Force India, whilst fourth-placed Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) fell just short of the 100-lap mark, not helped by a turn-five stoppage in the afternoon.
An afternoon ultrasoft run from Kevin Magnussen lifted the Haas driver to fifth place ahead of Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull Racing) and Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren), who did not improve on their morning efforts.
Vandoorne was unable to make up for lost time. Following the two morning stoppages, he completed little over a dozen laps in the afternoon.
Valtteri Bottas’ afternoon session was focused on longer runs, so he only set a time good enough for eighth place, ahead of Sauber’s Pascal Wehrlein and Renault’s Jolyon Palmer, who caused the fourth red flag deployment of the day by stopping at turn ten.
Marcus Ericsson (Sauber), Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll (both Williams) completed the standings for the third day of the second test.
To view the full results of the session, click here.
