Hamilton tops final test day in Barcelona

Lewis Hamilton in the unbeatable Aldo Costa designed Mercedes

It's getting clearer by the day that Aldo Costa has designed yet another unbeatable Mercedes F1 car. On Thursday afternoon, after the track finally dried, Lewis Hamilton but the Mercedes atop the time charts by a wide margin, using, get this, a tire 4 levels harder than the 2nd quick driver, Stoffel Vandoorne, in the McLaren.

McLaren has continued to mask their lack of pace by setting fast times on tires much softer than everyone else.

Sebastian Vettel was third fastest with a lap (soft tires) almost a full second slower than Hamilton who ran with harder medium tires.

Vettel's Ferrari no match for the Mercedes

Kevin Magnussen put the Haas fourth with a series of runs on the supersoft tire.

Fernando Alonso took over the McLaren for the final few hours, and the Spaniard rounded out the top five using super-soft tires.

Max Verstappen spent most of the morning in the garage.

After lunch he completed 35 laps, mostly on the medium tire, and shortly after switching to the soft compound and setting two personal best sectors, he ran out of talent and spun into the gravel trap at Turn 12.

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Thursday Test Times