Vettel pushes Bottas at the top, before late Ferrari glitch

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Valtteri Bottas held on to the fastest time on Wednesday, having completed a lap of 1:19.705s in the morning of the third day of pre-season testing.

Bottas set his best lap time on ultrasoft tyres. But Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was able to get to within a quarter of a second of the Mercedes in the afternoon, despite sticking to the soft compound.

However there was a setback for Ferrari at the end of the day's session. After a remarkably reliable showing so far, Vettel's car stopped in the pit lane with ten minutes remaining in the day's session.

No one else came within a second of Bottas and Vettel's impressive lap times. Daniel Ricciardo was third fastest for Red Bull on 1:21.153s, while fourth and fifth on the timing screens were a pair of Renaults. Jolyon Palmer ran in the morning and Nico Hulkenberg in the afternoon, both setting their best times on on soft compound tyres

Bottas on top mid-day with sub-1min20s run

Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) was next up in sixth place, running on supersoft tyres for his fastest lap.

Bottas didn't have the opportunity to reply to Vettel's afternoon lap since he had handed over the car for the duration to his team mate Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton spent his time running race-length simulations on medium and soft tyres and finished only seventh fastest on 1:22.090s just ahead of Haas' Romain Grosjean on 1:22.118s.

Hamilton's race practice was interrupted by several red flags. Williams rookie Lance Stroll had two mishaps during the day to add to another he suffered on Tuesday.

His afternoon accident was the more serious of the pair, with the Canadian losing control of the car in turn 5 and hitting the barrier with an hour and a half to go. He was not able to resume before the chequered flag.

There was also an early end to the day for Carlos Sainz, who ran wide at turn four and beached his car in the gravel trap. He and Toro Rosso team mate Daniil Kvyat finished the day in 11th and 13th respectively. Force India’s development driver Alfonso Celis Jr separated them in 12th.

There was finally some much-needed cheer for McLaren. Fernando Alonso had a largely trouble-free day and completed 72 laps - more than the troubled car had managed on Monday and Tuesday combined.

Pos	Driver	Team	Times	Laps	Tyre
1	Bottas	Mercedes	1:19.705	75	US
2	Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.952	139	S
3	Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:21.153	70	S
4	Palmer	Renault	1:21.396	51	S
5	Hülkenberg	Renault	1:21.791	42	S
6	Ericsson	Sauber	1:21.824	126	SS
7	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:22.090	95	S
8	Grosjean	Haas	1:22.118	56	SS
9	Stroll	Williams	1:22.351	98	S
10	Alonso	McLaren	1:22.598	72	US
11	Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:23.540	32	M
12	Celis Jr	Force India	1:23.619	71	S
13	Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:23.952	31	M

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.