Bottas Comes To Grips With His New Car; Blisters Barcelona On Day 3 Of Testing

Valtteri Bottas set the best lap of 1m19.705s using ultra-soft rubber, while Vettel using the soft-compound Pirellis lapped just 0.247s slower than Bottas during the afternoon.

Vettel spent most of the day driving on medium-compound Pirellis, setting his best time after the lunch break.

The German's day did come to a slightly untimely end when he stopped close to the finish line bringing out the red flag with nine minutes remaining.

Lewis Hamilton completed a full race simulation after taking over from Bottas at Mercedes for the afternoon, sticking to medium and soft tyres and setting the best time of 1m22.175s on the soft tyres.

Hamilton's run was hindered by two red flags, however, the first for an off for Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso at Turn 4, and the second coming within minutes when Lance Stroll crashed his Williams.

Despite his late stoppage Vettel completed a day-high 139 laps, with Sauber man Marcus Ericsson, the next most hard-working driver with 126 to his name. Hamilton tested for 95 laps, giving the Mercedes F1 team a combined total of 170 for the day.

Red Bull driver Daniel Riccardo and Jolyon Palmer of Renault finished the day as the third and fourth quickest. Nico Hulkenberg rounded off the top five fastest drivers on the third day of the Barcelona test.

Sauber's Marcus Ericsson and Haas' Romain Grosjean made use of super soft to finish sixth and seventh respectively, followed by Hamilton, Stroll and Fernando Alonso's McLaren.

Carlos Sainz of Torro Rosso, Force India development driver Alfonso Celis and Daniil Kvyat, who sat out after completing Toro Rosso's morning run, completed the leaderboard.

Below is the photo gallery of the Mercedes-AMG GTR, a powerful luxury sports car, click to view.