Bottas ends final day of testing on top

Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time of the final day of pre-season testing as McLaren again struggled for mileage.

Having topped the times in a morning session which saw McLaren complete just two laps, Bottas’ time of 1:23.063 went unbeaten in the afternoon as most teams focused on long running. The end result is Williams and Mercedes sharing the headline times across the test, with the four drivers fastest on one day each.

Felipe Massa was fastest on the opening day before Mercedes showed its pace on Friday and Saturday, with Bottas closing out the test. However, the Mercedes drivers set the fastest two times of the week overall and on the soft tyre, highlighting the advantage of the W06 as both Williams drivers used the supersofts.

Sebastian Vettel was second quickest for Ferrari, setting a time 0.4s shy of Bottas on the supersoft tyre. Ferrari attempted a race simulation in the afternoon but had to put it on hold for 40 minutes before Vettel got close to completing the 66 laps before the chequered flag came out, pitting a few minutes early.

With Kimi Raikkonen having carried out a race simulation on Saturday, it was the Finn who was quicker over the distance having used the hard tyres in the middle of his run.

While Ferrari attempted to carry out its second race simulation in two days, McLaren’s pre-season ended in with yet another frustrating day. Jenson Button - back in the car for the first time since completing 101 laps on Friday - was only able to complete two installation laps in the final five minutes of the morning session.

There were a few runs for the MP4-30 in the afternoon but Button was limited to a total of 30 laps, meaning McLaren and Honda will head to the first race of the season with a number of question marks over the new car and power unit.

At the other end of the spectrum, Sauber completed the most laps in a day at the Circuit de Catalunya as Felipe Nasr managed 159 and finished third quickest. Nasr was another driver to carry out a race simulation in the afternoon as the team managed to give its rookie driver significant mileage ahead of his race debut.

Max Verstappen was fourth overall after a number of performance laps late in the day. Toro Rosso had planned a race simulation but had to abort when Verstappen stopped on track with a power unit problem, confining him to the garage for most of the afternoon before a late blast on supersoft tyres.

With Verstappen managing 85 laps, he ended the day with more mileage and a faster time than Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. The team endured a frustrating morning, with Ricciardo stopping at the pit lane exit with an ERS issue which limited running.

Sergio Perez completed 130 laps on his only day in the VJM08 as Force India’s impressive reliability continued. Having completed a race distance too, Force India ended its pre-season test schedule with the new car having completed 364 laps since it was launched on Friday. McLaren, in contrast, has completed 380 in total.

Mercedes steered clear of any headline times or race simulations as Nico Rosberg carried out set-up work, often running the soft tyre but never on low fuel. He ended the day ahead of Button - who ran the supersoft tyre - and Pastor Maldonado.

Maldonado spoke about the Lotus reliability during the lunch break but crashed at Turn 4 early in the afternoon, ripping the front left corner off the car and bringing the team's test to an early end.

The final day of testing as it happened