Maldonado with the best time of the week

Pastor Maldonado set the fastest time of the week on the third day of testing in Barcelona with soft tires. The track had previously been slightly soaked by rain, and the Venezuelan drove the Lotus race with a time of 1: 24.348. This one was three hundredths faster than Max Verstappn in Toro Rosso.

It was Verstappen who was at the top of the table at the end of the morning work. The rookie used the afternoon to prepare for the races, and by the end of the day he had driven 129 laps.

Lewis Hamilton was third with 1.3 seconds less time. He drove his best lap on harder tires. Fourth was Sauber racer Marcus Ericsson, who spent most of the morning waiting in the garage, where mechanics on his car were repairing the transmission.

Sebastian Vettel started testing in Barcelona by spinning in his first lap. He lost control of the car and drove off the track into the sand on the fourth turn. The four-time world champion was soon back on track, however, and by the end of the day, he had driven his fifth fastest time in a series of more than a hundred laps.

Daniil Kvyat rehearsed stops with Red Bull mechanics in the morning and then drove a race simulation.

At Williams, they divided the work between their two racers on the third day. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas practiced boxing stops all day.

McLaren once again faced problems with the seal on the energy recovery system. A quarter of a day before the tests, the difficult seal will be replaced with a changed one, in order to eliminate the problem that was bothering them at the beginning of the testing. The Woking team drove with limited power in the afternoon, and Jenson Button ended the day a little early.

 

	Racer	Team	Hour	Circles
1.	P. Maldonado	Lotus F1 Team	01:24.348	104
2.	M. Verstappen	Scuderia Toro Rosso	01:24.379	129
3.	L. Hamilton	Mercedes Grand Prix	01:26.076	101
4.	M. Ericsson	Clean	01:26.340	53
5.	S. Vettel	Ferrari	01:26.407	105
6.	D. Kvyat	Red Bull	01:26.589	112
7.	F. Massa	Williams	01:26.912	55
8.	P. Wehrlein	Force India F1	01:27.333	81
9.	V. Bottas	Williams	01:27.556	49
10.	J. Button	McLaren	01:29.151	24