Barcelona II, day 4: Vettel fastest as pre-season F1 testing comes to an end

Sebastian Vettel set the quickest time of the final day of pre-season Formula One testing in Barcelona, while Mercedes encountered its first real technical woes of the year.

After team-mate Kimi Räikkönen yesterday briefly tested the Halo head protection system, Vettel too used his first outing this morning to briefly trial the device. Thereafter he set about finding some pace and the German set his best time in the morning session. That lap of 1:22.852, set on the supersoft tyre, was just a tenth shy of the fastest time of the two tests, set yesterday by Räikkönen on ultrasoft tyres.

With the majority of drivers opting for long run work in the afternoon, Vettel’s time stood until the chequered flag and meant that Ferrari topped the time sheet on six of the eight days of running.

While the Italian squad have grabbed the headlines on lap time, Mercedes rarely showed their hand across the two tests. Instead the champions showcased hugely impressive reliability, regularly posting in excess of 150 laps per day across the two tests.

However, after pushing the new W07 to the limit, the team finally ecountered problems today, with Lewis Hamilton grinding to a halt with a transmission problem just before lunch.

The issue was quickly solved, however, and Nico Rosberg was back out in the afternoon, adding another 70 laps to Hamilton’s 69 from the morning for a total of 139. Once again the team focused on set-up work on the medium tyre and thus Hamilton finished the day in fifth spot, with Rosberg at the bottom of the timesheet in P13.

Second-fastest on the final day was Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz. On his own the Spaniard completed just six laps fewer than Mercedes across the day and today an ultrasoft run netted him a best time of 1:23.134, just under three tenths adrift of Vettel.

Fourth-placed Felipe Massa completed 129 laps for Williams on his way to the day’s third quickest lap, a 1:23.644 set on the supersoft tyre. His time on the same compound used by Vettel put Massa just under eight tenths off the Ferrari.

Sergio Perez was fourth fastest but the Mexican hit trouble in mid afternoon, bringing out the red flags when he stopped in the final sector. The problem spelled the end of Force India’s test as it failed to get Pérez out again.

Behind Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo was sixth for Red Bull Racing. The RB12 again and showed good reliability as he followed team-mate Daniil Kvyat’s 121 lap total from yesterday with 123 tours today. Ricciardo;s best time was set soft tyres and left him 1.5s slower than Vettel. McLaren had a similarly strong end to the test, with 121 laps for Jenson Button.

Behind Ricciardo, Jolyon Palmer was seventh for Renault ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson. Behind them Haas split its running today with Romain Grojean at the wheel in the morning and Esteban Gutierrez taking over in the afternoon. SAfter two troubled days for the US-based outfit today was much better with the driver pairing getting through 91 laps in total.

Rio Haryanto was in 12th position for Manor, though his best time, set on ultrasofts, was three seconds slower than vettel’s table topper.