Daniil Kvyat put Toro Rosso on top on Day 3 of Barcelona F1 test after a late quick lap as he beat Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.
In the morning, Ferrari was once again in the lead of the timesheets like the prior two days with Sebastian Vettel leading the way, but the SF90 was beaten in the last moments before lunch as Raikkonen set a 1m17.762s lap time.
The afternoon session had teams working on race simulations despite some late qualifying simulations with drivers using the softer compound. Renault’s Ricciardo used the (C4) compound to moved into third with a 1m18.164s lap with 80 laps.
At the same time, Toro Rosso’s of Daniil Kvyat went out on the C5 compound to set a 1m17.704s lap – not only the quickest on Day 3 but also the 2019 pre-season test so far to end up ahead of Raikkonen, who did not improve on his pre-lunch time, set on C5.
Kvyat did 137 laps with Raikkonen completing 138. Having set the pace early on, Vettel was fourth overall with a 1m18.350s on the (C3) compound with 134 laps in all. On the same tyre choice, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen (1m18.787s) was fifth with 109 laps.
Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg finished sixth with 63 laps with a best of 1m18.800s on the (C4) compound ahead of Haas’ pair of Romain Grosjean (1m19.060s) and Pietro Fittipaldi (1m19.249s) with the duo completing 69 and 48 laps respectively on (C3) and (C4).
On the (C3) compound, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz (1m19.354s), Racing Point’s Sergio Perez (1m20.102s) and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas (1m20.693s) finished ninth, 10th and 11th respectively with the trio undertaking 90, 67 and 88 laps.
Meanwhile, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was 12th using the prototype compound with 94 laps on board as the big news of the debut of Williams FW42 saw George Russell complete 23 laps in all with a best of 1m25.625s on the (C3) compound.