Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Verstappen fastest after Vettel spin

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Max Verstappen set the fastest time of the third morning of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya as Sebastian Vettel caused a red flag on his out lap.

Vettel was first out on track on Saturday morning but only made it as far as the exit of Turn 4 before spinning in to the gravel. The resulting red flag came just 90 seconds in to the day and delayed running for 15 minutes, with Vettel admitting he had made a mistake on cold tyres.

Once running got underway again it was Verstappen who set the pace with a 1:24.739, finishing the morning session comfortably clear of the rest of the field having registered his time on the soft compound tyre. Toro Rosso also enjoyed the most productive morning as Verstappen completed 60 laps.

Lewis Hamilton was second fastest for Mercedes as he completed 41 laps, with the W06 not returning to the track once light rain started to fall late in the morning session. Having not run the soft tyre, Hamilton ended up over 1.4s off the fastest time set by Verstappen.

Vettel recovered from his early spin to set the third quickest time, completing over 50 laps in the Ferrari with the car not sustaining any damage as a result of his off. The four-time world champion also headed out on intermediate tyres in the final half an hour to check track conditions on after the rain shower.

Daniil Kvyat was fourth fastest for Red Bull having spent much of the morning carrying out pit stop practice. After a number of laps without setting a time, Kvyat clocked a 1:26.589 in the RB11 which was quickest in the hands of Daniel Ricciardo on Friday.

Williams was another team looking to carry out pit stop practice on Saturday due to the weather forecast, leading the team to change its driver schedule and run Felipe Massa in the morning session. Massa was fifth quickest but over two seconds off the pace set by Verstappen.

Pascal Wehrlein was back in the Force India after having his initial running in the VJM07 curtailed by a call-up to drive the Mercedes on Thursday. Wehrlein ended the morning sixth ahead of Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus E23.

McLaren hit more problems as Jenson Button stopped on track after the engine shut down. Honda investigated the problem for over an hour before Button returned for a further installation lap later in the session, but the MP4-30 was limited to just 12 laps in total.

Marcus Ericsson was slowest overall having been confined to the Sauber garage for the majority of the first four hours due to gearbox trouble. Ericsson emerged in the final half hour but only completed six laps on intermediate tyres.

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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.