Barcelona F1 test day three
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Another improvement from Vettel to move up to second with a 1m22.012s, and he's going even faster next time around. If he stays out this should put him fastest.
Gary Anderson
Red Bull has the garden gate on the car today. It's an aero rake behind the front wheels. Everything about an F1 car is about making the airflow on the surfaces work, but the airflow away from the car impacts that.
You need to know what the 'invisible' is doing and Red Bull's rake will have masses of sensors. This will allow it to see how steering lock impacts things, especially through long corners like Turn 3. The team will be looking at the characteristics of the steering and how it influences the balance of the car.
You need to know what the 'invisible' is doing and Red Bull's rake will have masses of sensors. This will allow it to see how steering lock impacts things, especially through long corners like Turn 3. The team will be looking at the characteristics of the steering and how it influences the balance of the car.
Vettel puts in a new personal best of 1m23.010s to move up to fourth.
Verstappen accepts defeat in the battle of the aero rakes and heads into the pits, leaving Vettel with a clear track.
Vettel and Verstappen are the only cars on track now, and they are circulating together, having some sort of 'aero rake-off' with the weird and wonderful devices bolted to their cars at the moment. Lots of sparks from the Ferrari as it comes past the pits, so it's probably heavy with fuel.
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Here’s the first lap count of day three:
Fittipaldi 10
Bottas 8
Hulkenberg 7
Vettel 6
Raikkonen 6
Kvyat 4
Verstappen 4
Perez 1
Fittipaldi 10
Bottas 8
Hulkenberg 7
Vettel 6
Raikkonen 6
Kvyat 4
Verstappen 4
Perez 1
Let's have another reminder of the tyre compounds. Remember - the higher the number, the softer the tyres.
Stopwatch
Next time around it's Hulkenberg that's fastest with a 1m22.348s, while Kvyat gets on the board with a 1m23.0s on C4 (Red) tyres.
Stopwatch
Fittipaldi improves again to a 1m22.644s, while the DRS-less Hulkenberg puts in a 1m24.3s on C2 tyres.
Stopwatch
Fittipaldi's next lap is the kind of tiny improvement that frustrates us. He's found 0.034s, hardly worth mentioning, but we have to.
Stopwatch
Fittipaldi now goes fastest with a 1m22.835s.
The improvements keep coming for Fittipaldi, who has now set a 1m24.3s.
We don't do much running to the window to get top-down shots of the cars, we leave that to the technical experts. But we felt we needed to show you the 'wide load' Verstappen was carrying for that run. By all means check out the tight packaging of the Red Bull as well while you're here
Here's a look at the aero device Mercedes is running this morning.
1m27.9s for Fittipaldi next time around, running C3 tyres.
Verstappen passes the pits with aero rakes behind his front wheels that are so wide, we're a bit worried about his ability to fit through small gaps (or the pit entrance).
Fittipaldi kicks his day off with a 1m32.947s.
Verstappen and Perez head out, joining Fittipaldi's Haas on track.
Bottas returns to the pits with eight laps to his name already after just 12 minutes of running. Impressive. Mercedes loves a busy start to the morning at testing, much more than it loves ever showing its true pace.
Next time past the pits it's a slow-speed run for Bottas. That's so the team can gather some more aero information from the contraptions they attach to the cars in testing.
Bottas was kind enough to go a few hundredths slower than his best that time so we don't need to fill your screen with more purple.
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Stopwatch
Incremental gains for Bottas on this run, he's now down to a 1m23.005s.
Stopwatch
Another improvement to a 1m23.133s from Bottas.
Stopwatch
Bottas improves to a 1m23.557s. He's got a chunky aero rake hanging off the back of his car for this run.
Information
Renault confirms it will not be running with DRS this morning after the failure Ricciardo suffered yesterday:
"Nico is behind the wheel this morning and will work on a programme aimed at shorter based runs assessing the softer compounds on the Pirelli range. We will not run with DRS this morning."
"Nico is behind the wheel this morning and will work on a programme aimed at shorter based runs assessing the softer compounds on the Pirelli range. We will not run with DRS this morning."
Stopwatch
You'll be shocked to learn that Bottas has set the first laptime of the day. How very Mercedes of him. It's a 1m25.237s on C3 tyres.
Hulkenberg, Raikkonen, Fittipaldi, Bottas, Kvyat and Vettel have all headed straight out. Vettel has some funky aero measuring devices protruding from the top of his rear wing endplates to start the day.
Of course, the big question today is who will be our outlap spinner at Turns 4 or 5 today on cold tyres? On Monday it was Kimi Raikkonen, and yesterday it was newboy Alexander Albon. That's covered both ends of the experience spectrum, so perhaps it will be someone in the middle today? Our money is on Nico Hulkenberg, in that case.
Green flag
We're green for day three of F1 testing.
We know we've had a lot of requests for accurate weather information this week. The weather information screen is on, but to borrow a joke from Motorsport.com's F1 editor Jonathan Noble, all it's telling us is "the temperature is between 0 and 70 degrees Celsius"
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It's all calm on the paddock-side of the Williams set-up. Probably a bit more going on in the garages themselves
It's normal to hear some engines firing up 10 minutes or so before the session begins, but with five to go the pitlane is quiet. Maybe all the teams are being sporting and waiting for Williams to be ready?
It's a very dark and overcast Circuit de Catalunya this morning. We don't have any temperatures up in the media centre, but we're going to use the word mild.
Autosport
Missed yesterday's testing? We've got you covered.
Let's start with some news - the Williams is finally here! 
Another day, another eight hours of F1 testing awaits. Welcome to day three from Barcelona.
By: Geoff Creighton
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