Barcelona F1 test: Max Verstappen fastest, more McLaren trouble

Toro Rosso's 17-year-old rookie used Pirelli's new super-soft tyres to great effect as he outpaced Mercedes' F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton by 1.4 seconds at the start of the third day.

Verstappen did another run on the super-soft shortly after his benchmark time, and though he set a new fastest first sector he could not improve his overall lap.

The Dutchman was the only driver to attempt a performance run, with those behind him on medium-compound Pirellis, although McLaren-Honda would have been grateful for any meaningful mileage at all.

Jenson Button caused a red flag when he stopped the MP4-30 on track at Turn 7 after just seven laps of running, with the team confirming its Honda engine suffered a loss of power. The McLaren returned to the track, but only added a handful of out-and-in-laps to his tally.

Button was not the only world champion to cause a stoppage. Sebastian Vettel spun his Ferrari on his first lap of the day and beached it in the gravel approaching Turn 5, later admitting he had made a mistake while the track remained slightly greasy.

After his SF15-T was recovered back to the pits, the German returned to the track without too much time loss, eventually setting the third-fastest time, just 0.265s slower than Hamilton on the same medium-compound tyre.

Daniil Kvyat performed pitstop practice and aerodynamic evaluation runs for Red Bull before jumping to fourth on a medium-tyre run.

Williams driver Felipe Massa completed a close group of usual suspects in fifth, with his time, 1m26.912s, 0.8s back from Hamilton.

Further down the timesheets Pascal Wehrlein and Pastor Maldonado racked up solid mileage for Force India and Lotus respectively, and both were more than a second faster than Button's McLaren.

The Briton did not prop up the timing screen though. Marcus Ericsson's Sauber only completed six laps, all on intermediate tyres, as rain hit half an hour before the lunch break, after the team had to replace the gearbox following problems on Friday.

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