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Hamilton ends the first week of testing on top

Copyright: Formula 1 (Twitter)

CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | After another day with no pause, the afternoon hours have been of the most active and useful of the week. Lewis Hamilton took the place of Valtteri Bottas in Mercedes and moved to third place with his first lap. Then, Charles Leclerc replaced Marcus Ericsson in Sauber and Lance Stroll jumped into the Williams.

Stoffel Vandoorne, whose morning time had him on the lead, stayed in the car until 15:30, and he completed 110 laps. Then, he left his seat for Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard did some good laps with the supersoft tyres.

At 16:20, the second red flag of the day waved as Max Verstappen ran wide into the gravel trap at turn 12. The car was undamaged, but he lost a bit of time.

When the green flag waves again, drivers returned to track to get more mileage. It was being a very productive day despite the times were not being improved anymore, apart from Hamilton moving to the lead some minutes after the restart.

Nothing else important but a minor incident for Stroll, who left the track at turn 3 and caused a very short red flag period. The session ended with Hamilton on top, with a 1:19.333., set with medium tyres; Vandoorne’s morning time was enough to keep him in second place for the remainder of the day. Vettel finished third.

McLaren was the team who got more mileage, with more than 150 laps between Alonso and Vandoorne, followed by Toro Rosso Honda with 161. Red Bull struggled again and Verstappen could only do 35 laps.

That brings the first week of pre-season testing to an end. Now, the teams and drivers will have four days to rest before the second week starts on Tuesday the 6th, with much better conditions expected.

Results at 14:00:

Pos. Nº. Driver Team Time Laps
1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:19.333 69
2 2 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1:19.854 110
3 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:20.241 120
4 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:20.317 96
5 14 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:20.929 51
6 55 Carlos Sainz Renault 1:20.940 60
7 18 Lance Stroll Williams 1:21.142 54
8 11 Sergio Pérez Force India 1:21.972 65
9 33 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:22.058 35
10 10 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 1:22.134 147
11 27 Nico Hülkenberg Renault 1:22.507 49
12 77 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:22.789 60
13 16 Charles Leclerc Alfa Romeo Sauber 1:22.808 59
14 9 Marcus Ericsson Alfa Romeo Sauber 1:23.825 79
15 35 Sergey Sirotkin Williams 1:31.979 47