Hamilton fastest on Day 3 at Bahrain

F1 Test, Bahrain, Bahrain International Circuit

Day three of testing got underway in Bahrain, marking the beginning of the second half of winter testing ahead of the start of the season. With 6 days left, some teams urgently need to get more running done.

Almost predictably, the day started with Lewis Hamilton taking the top of the timesheet, lapping the Bahrain circuit in 1:34.263 on the soft compound Pirellis. The time was also slightly faster than yesterday's best of Kevin Magnussen, who set his best in the McLaren fitted with super soft tyres.

Williams was the most active team in the morning, with Valtteri Bottas again behind the wheel. After 55 laps, mostly including pit stop practices, the young Finn gets out of the car to make room for Felipe Massa. The latter was frustrated by his lack of running on Wednesday and therefore gets another half day extra.

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Meanwhile at Force India, following solid running on Thursday, a problem with the batteries prevents consistent running. At Lotus, Pastor Maldonado stopped halfway around his 19th lap with a gearbox issue.

Ferrari on the other hand has Raikkonen back behind the wheel, but the Finn also didn't get much work to do as Ferrari opted to fix some telemetry issues following a mere 12 laps, the best of which being 1:41.336, 7 seconds off the pace. The Ferrari F14T was however seen with a special rake fitted ahead of the rear wing to assess the airflow heading onto the rear wing's flaps.

In the afternoon, more trouble popped up for Lotus, going out twice and stopping on the same lap. The team did eventually resolve the problem were failed to do more than 26 laps.

Red Bull Racing had a similar afternoon during which the team started to dismantle the RB10 in an attempt to resolve a mechanical issue that the team had not seen before. With just 28 laps on the counter for Ricciardo, the car was not seen again in the afternoon.

Mercedes also had problems late in the afternoon that prevented further running. Ferrari did manage to get Raikkonen out again, but not for much running at all, ending the day with 44 laps.

On the active side was McLaren, completing 103 laps. Williams became the most active team of the day, sharing duties between its two race drivers to complete a solid 105 laps. Sauber also had an active day, along with Caterham, even though the latter were off the pace by quite a margin.