Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the day on the final day of pre-season testing before the opening Grand Prix of the season in Bahrain, which is now under two weeks away!

The McLaren man clocked a 1:20.472 from 134 laps. Hamilton spent the morning fine-tuning the MP4-25’s set-up while also carrying out a number of pitstop practices. At the end of the morning, the team undertook several simulated qualifying runs, thrilling the crowds by going head to head with Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher, who were also carrying out similar work, before the afternoon, where the team ran another race simulation, carrying out three 22-lap stints.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber was 2nd, and Felipe Massa third, setting a 1:20.539 from his 114 laps. Adrian Sutil conducted a race simulation and qualifying runs, in addition to aero and brake work on his way to 4th in the timesheets.

5th was Sebastian Vettel, who shared the day’s running with Mark Webber, due to the interruptions yesterday.

Michael Schumacher set a 1:20.745 from 123 laps, and says the Barcelona test has helped the team make significant progress:

“The four testing days here in Barcelona have helped us to make significant progress with the MGP W01 and I am feeling quite confident for the start of the season. It is always difficult to read too much into testing but knowing our programme, it is fair to say that the times did not always reflect the true picture. We have worked through many set-up and development evaluations this week and gained valuable information to study before Bahrain. We are heading the first race with a good feeling and we know that we will have our upgrades there. But most of all we know that our prospects for even the first races are looking very reasonable now.”

Michael Schumacher

Rubens Barrichello was 7th ahead of Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber. A gear box problem cost about two hours of track time for Kobayashi before lunch. In the afternoon the team tried to catch up with the programme, but had to contend with an early stop to its running, meaning Kobayashi completed 67 laps.

Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi was 9th, and Robert Kubica 10th. Kubica’s Renault team lost some track time in the morning with a technical problem, but covered good mileage in the afternoon.

Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen was 11th, with a 1:25.251 from 65 laps. After some developmental mechanical and weight balance changes, Lotus were happy to see yet more improvement in the car’s reliability and pace. Virgin Racing’s Lucas di Grassi brought up the rear, over 5 seconds off the pace of Hamilton.

Results