New fast lap set despite Ferrari sandbagging

Sebastian Vettel set the pace on the penultimate day of pre-season testing, despite Ferrari thinly masking its full potential.

As the pace increased in the opening session, Vettel hid Ferrari's true pace on consecutive fastest laps. After he set the fastest first two sectors of the day on the supersoft tire, Vettel backed off across the finish line in posting a 1m19.314s lap, before lowering the benchmark further on ultrasofts with a 1m19.024s, again taking the same approach. It was clear Vettel could go comfortably into the 1m18s but opted against posting the time.

The German's lap was the quickest time posted this pre-season, and came at the start of a productive day as he completed 156 laps on his final outing in the SF70H before the first race. Vettel admitted he also had "a little off" during the morning session before settling down for long running in the afternoon on another warm day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Only Lewis Hamilton joined Vettel in the 1m19s on Thursday, with the triple world champion ending the day 0.326s adrift of the Ferrari. Hamilton's best lap came on ultrasoft tires as well, but any intention he had of beating Vettel's time was nded by a red flag before the lunch break.

The cause of the stoppage was once again the McLaren-Honda, with Stoffel Vandoorne coming to a halt at the pit exit with an electrical issue (pictured below). While it was sent back out again with five minutes remaining before the hour-long lunch break, Vandoorne only reached Turn 10 before being forced to stop again with a recurrence of the problem. Having only managed 24 laps in the morning, McLaren matched that tally in the afternoon as reliability issues continued to prevent any significant running.

Vandoorne's best lap left him seventh overall, 2.3s off the pace set by Vettel. Only Hamilton was within a second, as Esteban Ocon set the third-fastest time with a 1m20.161s. Ocon also used the ultrasoft tire, but Force India was still 0.7s slower than Williams had been on the same compound yesterday.

Daniil Kvyat's final day testing for Toro Rosso yielded a more encouraging end than the first test. Kvyat completed just one lap on the final day last week, but he was fourth quickest on Thursday and managed 94 laps. The Russian ended up 0.255s slower than Ocon, with his fastest time being set on the supersoft compound during the morning session.

While not displaying any eye-catching pace on the penultimate day, Red Bull managed significant mileage as Daniel Ricciardo completed 128 laps. Renault power unit concerns have limited the team's track time during the week – including two MGU-K problems on Wednesday – but there was no recurrence as Ricciardo posted the sixth-fastest time.

Vettel boasted the most mileage of any driver and Ferrari's tally of 156 laps even exceeded Mercedes' total of 147 on Thursday, with Valtteri Bottas focusing on long runs during the afternoon, having taken over from Hamilton. Renault was also due to split running between its drivers, but after Jolyon Palmer's running was limited by a hydraulic problem on Wednesday, further issues on Thursday morning led the team to leave Palmer in the car for the full day to recover some track time.

Sauber and Williams gave each of their respective drivers half a day each, with the Pascal Wehrlein managing 44 laps but a lap time a second quicker than teammate Marcus Ericsson as the Swede focused on race pace in the afternoon. Lance Stroll completed his first race simulation in the Williams before lunch, managing 85 laps in total, before Felipe Massa followed a similar program and beat his rookie teammate's best time by 0.4s.