Sebastian Vettel wrapped up Ferrari’s impressive pre-season testing with the fastest lap on the final day in Barcelona.
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The controversial concept, which was pioneered by Hamilton’s Mercedes team and is created to improve driver head protection, has been trialled by Ferrari at this week’s final pre-season test in Barcelona.
Mercedes completed a total of 1,294 laps compared to Ferrari’s 854.
Spain s Carlos Sainz Jr was second-quickest in a Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso, clocking 1:23.134. But the four-time world champion said the gearbox failure that titleholder Lewis Hamilton suffered on track did not indicate a major problem for Mercedes.
Williams remains a likely contender for best of the rest and Felipe Massa completed another positive day in the FW38 with 129 laps and the third fastest time, set on super-softs. But you really don’t know what fuel load Ferrari is on; they have a strong package.
Bottas, who was. 361 seconds quicker than Hamilton, was on the super-soft option, while Hamilton used softs in slightly cooler morning conditions – again underlining how much Mercedes has in reserve in terms of speed.
Hamilton’s auto ultimately had to be retrieved on the back of a truck.
“I just say let’s wait two weeks …” And we are happy with the step we have made.
But Vettel said: “The new auto gives us the chance to close the gap”. We know that Ferrari is very close, so it can go either way really. Button’s best time was a 1:24.714 on the ultra-soft but McLaren racing director Eric Boullier said plenty more performance would be bolted on to the vehicle for the opening race. “You can improve the aesthetics”, Vettel said.
Meanwhile, French driver Romain Grosjean, who is driving for American-led newcomer Haas, was relieved to have a stress-free day after stopping three times on Thursday because of braking issues. “One more afternoon and then they can relax a little bit and next week we need to work hard to prepare for Melbourne”.
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Grosjean handed over to teammate Esteban Gutierrez for the last hour, giving the Mexican driver some more lap time after he spent all day Wednesday stuck in the garage.
