End of testing: Vettel narrowly ahead of Hamilton

At the end of the eight days at the Circuit de Catalunya, Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes world champion Lewis Hamilton were separated by just three thousandths of a second. The stage is set for the first big showdown on March 17th at the start of the season in Melbourne.

Initially, Vettel was the man of the day on Friday, before the Ferrari's electrical system failed and the four-time world champion was forced to retire early. By then, two days after his spectacular crash, the Heppenheimer had set one top mark after another and had gone into his lunch break with the best time of the week of 1:16,221 minutes. The day before, his teammate Charles Leclerc was only a hundredth of a second slower.

Ferrari has to stop early In the afternoon, the Scuderia only had 90 minutes left of the planned four hours before Vettel let the car roll out into Turn 2. At that point, Ferrari had just simulated a racing distance, which ended after the first third of the distance. “We won’t be able to get the car back in time,” Ferrari tweeted: “The test drives are over for us.”

Then came the hour for Mercedes and world champion Lewis Hamilton. While the Finn Valtteri Bottas was more than three tenths of a second slower than Vettel in the morning, even on the softest C5 tire compound, Hamilton turned up the heat in the afternoon. However, Vettel's best time remained, with Hamilton a blink behind in second place. The Brit then rushed to the airport and said goodbye for a short trip to Paris Fashion Week.

Vettel was particularly impressive in the last hour before the lunch break. The 31-year-old set best time after best time with different tire compounds and underlined what Leclerc had said very clearly on Thursday, to the surprise of many observers: “A Ferrari will win the opening round in Melbourne.” “What’s important is how quickly we get to Melbourne” Lewis Hamilton There are still two weeks until the start of the season in Australia, but Hamilton remained very calm: “There are no points or rewards for the best time in test drives. What’s important is how fast we can actually be in Melbourne, and we’ll know that after qualifying.”

One day after Frenchman Pierre Gasly's major crash following a driving error, Red Bull got the car back on the wheels in an intensive night shift in time for Max Verstappen. However, the Dutchman decided not to chase times; his 1:17,709, achieved on the C3 medium compound, was only enough for eleventh place.

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End of testing: Vettel narrowly ahead of Hamilton

The duel between the giants gained spectacular momentum on the final day of Formula 1 testing in Barcelona.

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