Lewis Hamilton all-but matched Sebastian Vettel’s fastest time of pre-season as the final day of testing concluded in Barcelona.
After the German had set the benchmark in the morning, the world champion went out with the C5 tyre on his Mercedes in the final hour and set a 1m16.224s, just 0.003s slower.
Interestingly, the majority of his time came in the final sector which was two-tenths faster than his arch-rival, which suggests the W10 has cured the weakness is technical sectors or Ferrari still has pace in hand.
As for Vettel, his day was brought to an early end after an electrical issue saw him stop on track in the Ferrari, though he would still complete 110 laps on Friday.
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Valtteri Bottas’ morning time saw him remain third as Nico Hulkenberg showed a glimpse of Renault’s performance in fourth, narrowly ahead of Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz with all three in the 1m16s bracket.
The McLaren driver also ended the final day with most laps of anyone with 134 tours of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to his name.
Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo both ran in the morning and would finish seventh and eighth, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in Alfa Romeo.
Grosjean’s Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen had a busy afternoon with 94 laps to his name in ninth, though would cause a late red flag after coming to a halt at Turn 4.
Red Bull had a disappointing final day as repercussions from Pierre Gasly’s crash on Thursday limited Max Verstappen to just 29 laps in the morning before a gearbox problem sidelined the Dutchman for the afternoon.
Sergio Perez put another century of laps on the Racing Point in 11th with Robert Kubica bringing up the timings for Williams.
Full standings from Friday can be seen below:
With that, pre-season testing for 2019 is in the books and all attention now switches to Albert Park in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix in just two weeks time!
