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Barcelona F1 testing: Bottas tops final day, Verstappen teases pace

Valtteri Bottas completed the final session of Formula 1 pre-season testing at the top of the timesheets, ending the day with a 1m16.196s to beat Daniel Ricciardo's morning benchmark

Having fitted the C5 tyres midway through the afternoon's incident-free running, Bottas leapfrogged Ricciardo with a time just 0.05 seconds faster than the Renault driver's best effort of the day to vault to the top of the times.

Moments later, Bottas then found another tenth, improving his first sector time over his previous best to cement his position.

Bottas held the overall fastest lap over the six days of testing too, setting a 1m15.732s on the final day of the first week - also on the softest compound of tyre available.

Max Verstappen also squeaked ahead of Ricciardo, going out on a set of brand new C4 tyres with half an hour to spare to set a time just 0.073s down on Bottas's chart-topping time.

Although Verstappen looked set to have one more chance to displace Bottas from the top, he ultimately backed out of his final run on a new set of C4 tyres, leaving Bottas with the bragging rights.

Ricciardo's time from the morning was good enough to preserve third overall, while Charles Leclerc collected the fourth-best time having set a mammoth 181 laps throughout the day - just shy of three race distances at the Barcelona circuit.

Lewis Hamilton remained behind Leclerc having handed the Mercedes over to Bottas for the afternoon, while Esteban Ocon stitched together a lap just 0.02s down on Hamilton to finish the day sixth overall.

Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz Jr (pictured above) dedicated the afternoon to long runs, finishing the session in seventh and eighth having each surpassed 150 laps, both ending the day just clear of George Russell.

Russell had spent the day conducting aero work for Williams, and trialled new bodywork to help his team prepare for the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

Kimi Raikkonen remained in the Alfa Romeo for the afternoon, but his day ended with an hour to spare - leaving the Finnish driver locked in 12th.

Kevin Magnussen spent most of the afternoon stranded in the garage with apparent clutch issues, but returned for the final half-hour of running - setting his best time of a 1m17.495s on a set of C4 tyres to claim the 13th-best time.

That left Alex Albon at the bottom of the leaderboard, following his morning session off-road excursion at Turn 12.

Friday times

Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m16.196s - 79
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda 1m16.269s 0.073s 45
3 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 1m16.276s 0.080s 65
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1m16.360s 0.164s 181
5 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m16.410s 0.214s 90
6 Esteban Ocon Renault 1m16.433s 0.237s 75
7 Sergio Perez Racing Point/Mercedes 1m16.634s 0.438s 154
8 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren/Renault 1m16.820s 0.624s 163
9 George Russell Williams/Mercedes 1m16.871s 0.675s 146
10 Daniil Kvyat AlphaTauri/Honda 1m16.914s 0.718s 160
11 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m17.037s 0.841s 86
12 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo/Ferrari 1m17.415s 1.219s 115
13 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m17.495s 1.299s 29
14 Alexander Albon Red Bull/Honda 1m17.803s 1.607s 59

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