Barcelona Day 3: Bottas tops with Vettel very close

It was nip-and-tuck at the top of the timing screens at the end of day three of Formula 1 pre-season testing between Mercedes and Ferrari, with Valtteri Bottas ending the day quickest and, not far off his pace, in second place was Sebastian Vettel.

Bottas’s best time of 1:19.75 came ion the morning session when the new Mercedes recruit bolted on a set of Pirelli’s purple-banded ultrasoft tyres.

The time was eye-catching but Sebastian Vettel’s afternoon lap just a quarter second adrift of the Mercedes man was perhaps more significant, given that it was set on softy tyres, two steps up Pirelli’s range.

For the third day running Ferrari managed impressive reliability, with Vettel logging 139 laps. It wasn’t perfect, however, as the German’s car ground to a halt close to the start-finish straight with less than 10 minutes left in the session.

Vettel’s tally was put in the shade by Mercedes, however. Bottas 75 laps in the morning before handing over to Lewis Hamilton and the Briton worked through a further 95 laps during afternoon race simulations to give the champions a day total of 170 laps.

Hamilton’s long running in the second half of the session and his use of medium and soft compounds meant that he ended the day in P8 on the timesheet with a best time of 1:22.175.

Behind Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo was third-fastest for Red Bull Racing, thougn it was another day of frustration for the Australian. On day one a sensor issue and a battery problem disrupted Ricciardo’s running and today he was restricted to 70 laps in total.

Forty-eight of those came in the morning as the team worked through aero tests but the Australian was only to add 22 more in the afternoon as an exhaust problem halted the team in its tracks.

Renault’s Jolyon Palmer slotted into fourth place a little over two tenths behind the French outfit’s customer team. Palmer later handed over driving duties to team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, with the former Force India driver taking fifth place just under four tenths of a second off the Briton’s pace. Marcus Ericsson was sixth for Sauber ahead of Haas’ Romain Grosjean and Hamilton.

Ninth place on the timesheet went to Williams teenager Lance Stroll. It was another tough day on the learning curve for the Canadian rookie, however.

The Montreal native crashed out on first day in the Williams FW40 and after an off just before the lunch break, the afternoon session saw him crash out again, the youngster hitting the barriers on the exit of Turn 5. The reigning FIA F3 European champion had, however, posted a solid 98 lap total before the incident.

Tenth quickest was Fernando Alonso who also put 72 laps on the board for McLaren, three more than the team’s total over the first two days in Barcelona. Carlos Sainz was 11th for Toro Rosso, while Force India tester Alfonso Celis propped up the time with a lap almost four seconds adrift of pace-setting Bottas.