Less than a tenth split Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen as pre-season testing came to an end in Barcelona.
In a busy afternoon, the Finn would beat Daniel Ricciardo’s morning benchmark by 0.08s, setting a 1m16.196s on the C5 tyre with 75 minutes to go.
Verstappen would then squeeze into second, 0.073s behind, with 25 minutes to go but notably, he used the C4 Pirelli compound, one step harder than the Mercedes.
Ricciardo’s time remained good enough for third on the day ahead of Charles Leclerc, who completed an incredible 177 laps in the Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton ended fifth after completing 90 laps in the morning with Esteban Ocon sixth having taken over from Ricciardo in the Renault.
Sergio Perez was seventh for Racing Point ahead with Carlos Sainz only 18 laps behind Leclerc with 159 tours of his home circuit in the McLaren.
George Russell ended Williams’ much-improved pre-season in ninth with Daniil Kvyat completing the top 10 in the AlphaTauri.
At the bottom of the timesheet, Haas and Alfa Romeo continued to suggest they’ll be the early season backmarkers in P11-P13.
Just to show how competitive the 2020 grid, however, only 1.3 seconds covered Bottas in P1 to Kevin Magnussen in 13th.
Bottom of the timesheet was Alex Albon for Red Bull, as his morning run was compromised by a spin at Turn 12.
And that’s that, six days, thousands of laps, and growing anticipation of a duel between Mercedes & Red Bull in Australia.
It should be noted down Bottas’ best time this week was slower than his overall best during the six days, that being the 1m15.732s he managed on the same rubber on Day 3.
But track conditions over the final two days were slower following rain early Thursday and a gusty wind in Barcelona.
As it stands, there is still plenty more questions than answers, but at least we only have to wait two weeks (Coronavirus permitting) to find out if Mercedes remain dominant of whether Red Bull and/or Ferrari have a chance to steal their crown.
Full results from Friday can be seen below:
