Bottas tops day as F1 winter testing ends

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

The final day of winter testing in 2015 has started. Felipe Nasr is the first to leave the pits, followed by Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas.

10 minutes later, Sergio Pérez went out for his first taste of the new Force India VJM08. Following one and a half days for Hulkenberg in the car, Perez gets behind the wheel for one final day before the teams leave to Melbourne.

McLaren meanwhile informed that they were running system checks in the early morning an will be on track a bit later. The checks follow the oil leak of yesterday to make sure that everything is working fine again.

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At 10:14 local time, Daniel Ricciardo caused the first red flag of the day, stopping at the end of the pitlane. The Australian, who believes the front row of the grid at the Australian Grand Prix will certainly be for Mercedes AMG F1 is subsequently pushed back to the team's garage. The track is then green again 8 minutes later.

The best times this morning are set on the Pirelli special winter tyre. First it was Rosberg who recorded a 1:25.186 around 10:00 but Bottas improved that about an hour later 1:25.099, similarly on the winter hard compound. Half an hour later, the Finn sets a 1:23.859 on the soft tyres.

Closer before lunchtime, several drivers ventured out on the super softs, with Vettel going fastest, setting a 1:23.469 and ending up 4 tenths off of the Williams from Valtteri Bottas. Felipe Nasr is half a second further down around lunchtime, followed by Sergio Perez.

Just after lunch, Jenson Button came out for another two laps, setting his total for McLaren today on just four.

15 minutes into the afternoon session, Pastor Maldonado crashed his Lotus into the barriers at turn 5. Maldonado quickly stepped out of the car unharmed, but it took the marshals 15 minutes to clear the track and allow more running. Lotus later reported that the crash was caused by a brake problem.

Another half hour later, Max Verstappen parked his Toro Rosso at turn 11. An engine problem forced him to stop, only returning to the track in the final 20 minutes of the test.

The final parts of testing were dominated by longs runs. Sauber in particular did a complete race simulation while Rosberg also proved active. Sahara Force India also managed more than 100 laps in only the third day of running with their new VJM08.