Vettel goes fastest of all in final morning session

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

Sebastian Vettel has underlined once again that Ferrari are in very good shape to start the Formula One season by setting the fastest time of pre-season testing, bettering Leclerc's time of Thursday by another tenth.

The Ferrari SF90 proved very handy indeed, and a trouble-free morning allowed Vettel to complete 68 laps as well.

Eventually, Vettel ended up 3 tenths ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes, as the latter finally showed a sign of pace as they focused on doing performance runs with the softer tyres. At the same time, Lewis Hamilton said in an interview this morning that he and the team believe their deficit to Ferrari might be around 5 tenths, and that they're facing "their toughest fight yet".

Toro Rosso was once again well in the mix as Kvyat went third fastest with a similar laptime to what Albon managed the day before. Carlos Sainz in the McLaren was 2 tenths quicker than his team mate yesterday, and today ahead of Haas's Grosjean and Renault's Ricciardo.

Kimi Raikkonen ended up 7th. He was also the one who caused the single red flag of the morning, as he came to a halt one single minute ahead of the end of the session, most likely as the team are testing how far they can go before fuel runs out.

Max Verstappen was 8th fastest, even though the focus at Red Bull was less on performance runs. He was half a second slower than Raikkonen, and nearly 1.5s behind Vettel's best.

Testing continues for the last 4 hours of running this afternoon before everybody sets their mind on Melbourne where the first race of the season is to be held in 2 weeks time.