Hamilton vaults to the top in final Barcelona session!

©Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton picked up on Friday afternoon where George Russell had left off in the morning, the Briton putting both Mercedes drivers at the top of the timesheets on the final afternoon of pre-season testing in Barcelona.

The seven-time world champion reeled in 94 laps in the session that included a few hours of wet weather testing, setting his fastest time – the quickest of the week overall – at 1m19.138s on Pirelli's C5 softest tyre.

Behind the Silver Arrows duo, a revitalized Sergio Perez positioned his Red Bull RB18 third, just ahead of teammate Max Verstappen and Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel.

Barcelona Pre-Season Test - Day 3 final

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m19.138s	C5	94
2	George Russell	Mercedes	1m19.233s	C5	66
3	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1m19.556s	C4	74
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m19.756s	C3	59
5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	1m19.824s	C5	48
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1m19.831s	C3	44
7	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1m20.072s	C3	92
8	Alexander Albon	Williams	1m20.318s	C4	94
9	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	1m20.699s	C4	13
10	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	1m20.790s	C3	86
11	Lando Norris	McLaren	1m20.827s	C3	52
12	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	1m21.242s	C3	12
13	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	1m21.939s	C3	41
14	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	1m22.469s	C2	40
15	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	1m26.229s	C3	9
16	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1m30.433s	I	10

The afternoon kicked off with five teams attempting wet running on the artificially dampened track, with drivers undertaking limited laps with Pirelli's full wets and then inters, with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz proving fastest in the damp conditions.

In addition to Alpine, whose car remained under repair after the troubles encountered by Fernando Alonso in the morning, Haas was also unable to return to the track as a result of the oil leak suffered by Nikita Mazepin in the morning.

The same fate befell Aston Martin, with the team's AMR22 also hit with an oil leak issue that forced Lance Stroll in a spectating role, and AlphaTauri which was unable to repair the extensive damage that had resulted from Pierre Gasly's morning crash.

The final two hours of running took place on a completely dry track with all drivers reverting to slicks.

Hamilton put in his best effort in the closing stages of the session, exploiting a fresh set of C5 rubber, as Russell had done in the morning, to rocket to the top of the timesheet and set the fastest lap of F1's first leg of pre-season testing.

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Michael Delaney