Lewis Hamilton set the quickest time on the final day on the first Formula 1 test as Mercedes offered a glimpse of their potential in Barcelona.
After the snow and rain of Wednesday, sunshine and more temperate conditions welcomed the teams although the day was still split between wet running in the morning and a dry afternoon.
The world champion was only in his W09 for the afternoon but completed 69 laps with an impressive best of 1:19.333s on the Medium compound tyres, less than two-tenths slower of Sebastian Vettel’s fastest time over the four days on Soft compound Pirellis on Tuesday.
The pace of teammate Valtteri Bottas in the morning was perhaps more notably as he held a substantial advantage over the field in the wet before the track dried enough for a single run on slicks to end his stint.
McLaren had a strong Thursday also, as Stoffel Vandoorne completed a lot of work on the new Hypersoft tyre, setting the second-best time and managing 110 laps in total before handing over to Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard would add 51 more laps to the British team’s total in the final four hours with the fifth best time at the end.
Sebastian Vettel was third for Ferrari, turning a second-best 120 laps on the day, the honour of the most distance covered belonged to Toro Rosso and Honda again as Pierre Gasly managed 147 laps.
Kevin Magnussen was within a second of Hamilton’s pace for Haas in fourth, following a short run on the Supersoft rubber in the afternoon as Carlos Sainz maintained Renault’s solid first week with 60 laps and P6.
Both Williams drivers got the chance to get more mileage under their belt with Sergey Sirotkin driving in the wet morning, therefore ending bottom of the timesheets, and Lance Stroll in the afternoon finishing seventh.
Sergio Perez made his first appearance for Force India this week, after the day’s running was lost on Wednesday, with the Mexican completing 65 laps in eighth.
Max Verstappen was late to the action, opting not to run in the wet and would cause a red flag in the afternoon after going off at Turn 12 in a scruffy day which saw the Red Bull only ninth.
Gasly was 10th with Nico Hulkenberg 11th having also had the worst of the conditions in the morning for Renault.
The two Sauber drivers, Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson completed 138 laps between them but were the slowest of those who ran in the dry.
.
