BARCELONA TEST DAY THREE – Lewis Hamilton leads Mercedes one-two on final day of first test
Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two after setting a 19.138 to top the times by going just over a tenth quicker than teammate George Russell on the final day of the first test at the Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya. The seven-time champion set the fastest time of the test on the C5 tyres.
The afternoon session was a ‘wet tyre test’, however with ninety minutes to go the track had dried out after being sprayed with water, this allowed the drivers to complete dry running. Hamilton’s fastest lap was followed by Sergio Perez pushing Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen to fourth.0
Mercedes had a gap of four-tenths over Red Bull, although Perez and Verstappen were on the theatrically faster tyres. Perez was four-tenths off Hamilton’s fastest time and had two tenths ahead of Verstappen.
However, Russell tried to put the normal Mercedes spin on the one-two, telling reporters “Lap time-wise, I don’t think it’s representative at all. Even though we are top of the timesheets, I wouldn’t read too much into it.” He added that Ferrari and McLaren were “looking incredibly strong”.
Sebastian Vettel put his Aston Martin fifth fastest just under seven hundredths behind the Dutchman. However, the day ended for the German at lunchtime after forty-eight laps, an oil leak leading to a engine fire saw him stop on track. That brought out the third red flag before the lunch break.
Charles Leclerc was sixth fastest going a quarter of a second faster than his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz, both drivers setting their fastest time on the C3 tyre. Ferrari had topped the times on Thursday, but this would suggest that the status quo has remained despite the shake-up of the regulations.
Following the mornings wet tyre test, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Williams each banked over 100 laps.
Alpha Tauri’s running was also cut short after forty laps when Pierre Gasly went off and damaged his car at Turn Five. Two other red flags were caused by separate incidents for Guanyu Zhou, but Alfa Romeo were able to notch up a combined total of 51 laps with Valtteri Bottas.
Alex Albon was eighth fastest going four and a half tenths faster than teammate Nicolas Latifi. The Williams drivers were ahead of both McLarens, Latifi going half a second faster than Daniel Ricciardo while Lando Norris was seven hundredths behind.
Fernando Alonso put his Alpine twelfth, but the two-time champion could only manage twelve laps. That put him comfortably ahead of Zhou and Gasly and the Haas of Nikita Mazepin.
Haas dropped the livery of the car following the invasion of Ukraine, the team refusing to answer questions about title-sponsor Uralkali, owned by Mazepin’s father Dmitry, who has links to President Vladimir Putin. Putin ally Sergei Chemezov has been chairman of the company since 2014.
Valtteri Bottas rounded out the times four seconds behind Mazepin in the Alfa Romeo.
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