World champion Lewis Hamilton was fastest on the third day of the final Formula One pre-season test in Barcelona as Mercedes proved they remain well ahead of the chasing pack yesterday. 

– Lucky escape for Alonso after McLaren crash
– McLaren pleased with Alonso’s ‘solid recovery’ from crash
– Hamilton expects tougher challenge from Ferrari and Red Bull

Hamilton eased to the fastest lap of the day once he changed onto soft tyres, although his time of 1min 23.022 sec was nearly three tenths off the quickest time set by teammate Nico Rosberg on Friday. 

Rosberg will take over the wheel for the final day today and Hamilton admitted he would have liked to have more laps under his belt heading to the first race of the season in Melbourne after being affected by an illness at the second test last week.

However, the two-time world champion is happy with the form shown by the new W06 ahead of the defence of his title.

“It’s been generally good. The team has done a great job to get all the components here and reliability has been strong,” he said. “We are in as good a shape as we can be.”

Williams were once again the closest challengers to Mercedes as Felipe Massa produced his best time of the testing season, but was still over two tenths down on Hamilton despite being on the faster supersoft tyres.

“The car has remained very reliable over all three tests. Our long runs look positive and the car remains consistent throughout the stints,” said Massa. “We are not the only quick car on the track, though, and the fight behind Mercedes will be interesting.”

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was just over a hundredth of a second behind Massa on his best lap on the supersofts. On a day in which seven drivers managed over 100 laps, McLaren’s reliability problems were again highlighted as an oil leak restricted test driver Kevin Magnussen to just 39 laps.

“The day stopped a little too early for us,” said McLaren racing director Eric Boullier. “We didn’t do as many laps as we wanted. It is true it is going to hurt the development of the car on the performance side, but we will recover.”

Earlier in the day, Massa was fastest in the morning session. The Williams driver bettered his previous best time in testing in 1min 23:262 on the supersoft tyres, but was ominously still well off the time set by Rosberg on the slower soft tyres the previous day.

Raikkonen was just over a hundredth of a second behind Massa in the Ferrari as he also ran on the supersoft tyres with Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson in third. World champion Hamilton was only sixth fastest as his Mercedes spent a large chunk of the morning session preparing experimental changes to the car.

There was some positive news for McLaren as Magnussen, deputising for the absent Fernando Alonso after his crash last weekend, logged another 38 laps and posted the best time set by the MP4-30 in Barcelona over seven days of testing.

But mechanical issues cropped up later in the day Force India’s reliability in just their second day in the new VJM08 continued to be impressive as their driver Nico Hulkenberg completed the most mileage before lunch with 76 laps.