F1 Barcelona pre-season test - Day 3
Minute by minute updates on the final day of the 2022 Barcelona F1 pre-season test
After a busy opening couple of days, all 10 teams complete the first test of the new era of F1 under the new technical regulations.
Track action gets underway at 8am GMT and finishes at 5pm GMT. The day will be split by a one-hour lunch break (12pm-1pm GMT) which can be reduced if requested due to lost track time from either red flags or poor weather conditions.
The final day will provide another good look at all of the 2022 F1 cars from every team, to see which teams have got it right and which have work to do. While never fully taken as the true pecking order, due to teams hiding outright performance levels by sandbagging their speeds, the tests still reveal an overview while giving teams which are struggling nowhere to hide.
The Barcelona shakedown test, conducted without live TV coverage or live timing, runs between 23-25 February. A second official test will follow in Bahrain on 10-12 March ahead of the 2022 F1 season opener at the same venue, the Bahrain Grand Prix, on 18-20 March.
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By: Haydn Cobb, Jake Boxall-Legge
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And that's all from us! It's been an absolute pleasure to be able to bring you all the action from Barcelona - hope you've enjoyed it! We wish you a great weekend - and look forward to seeing you again for Bahrain. Goodnight!
Total laps and km per team across Barcelona F1 test
1. Ferrari - 439 laps - 2052 km2. Mercedes - 393 - 1837
3. McLaren - 367 - 1715
4. Red Bull - 358 - 1673
5. Williams - 347 - 1622
6. AlphaTauri - 308 - 1439
7. Aston Martin - 296 - 1383
8. Alpine - 266 - 1243
9. Alfa Romeo - 175 - 818
10. Haas - 160 - 748
Breaking news
Total laps and km per driver across Barcelona F1 test
1. Carlos Sainz Jr. - 236 laps - 1103 km2. Daniel Ricciardo - 212 - 991
3. George Russell - 209 - 977
4. Alexander Albon - 207 - 967
5. Max Verstappen - 206 - 963
6. Charles Leclerc - 203 - 949
7. Pierre Gasly - 187 - 874
8. Lewis Hamilton - 184 - 860
9. Sebastian Vettel - 174 - 813
10. Lando Norris - 155 - 724
11. Sergio Pérez - 152 - 710
12. Fernando Alonso - 141 - 659
13. Nicholas Latifi - 140 - 654
14. Esteban Ocon - 125 - 584
15. Lance Stroll - 122 - 570
16. Yuki Tsunoda - 121 - 565
17. Guanyu Zhou - 112 - 523
18. Mick Schumacher - 89 - 416
19. Nikita Mazepin - 71 - 331
20. Valtteri Bottas - 54 - 252
21. Robert Kubica - 9 - 42
Breaking news
2022 F1 Barcelona test: Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 on final day
Here's the report from the final session in the Barcelona pre-season test:https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2022-f1-barcelona-test-hamilton-leads-mercedes-1-2-on-final-day/8493144/
The customary practice starts took place before the cars returned to the garage: Sainz taking the first-place grid slot for his own effort - in front of Perez. Once they'd both got away, Hamilton took the P1 spot for himself.
Checkered flag
And that's it! The first three-day F1 test of the year is over - Hamilton from Russell from Perez from Verstappen. It'd be a Noah's Ark top 10 if Vettel wasn't loitering in P5, ahead of Leclerc, Sainz, Albon, Latifi, Ricciardo and Norris.
It looked as thought Hamilton was going to end the session with another fastest lap - but he backed off massively! What a tease...
Stopwatch
Hamilton takes 0.003s out of his time to set a 1m19.138s - on C5s. He said he's been to the year, three-thousandths...
It's a 1m20.072s for Sainz on the C3s, moving the Ferrari driver up to P7 ahead of Albon. The Williams driver has overtaken him on lap count, sitting on 86 to Sainz's 84.
Stopwatch
Hamilton sets a 1m19.141s to go top on C4 tyres, with 16 minutes of the test left to run. If he'd matched his earlier best third sector, it'd have been in the 1m18s...
Oh, here we go - brace...
Stopwatch
Hamilton sets a 1m19.674, complete with fastest first sector, to move up to P3 on his set of C4 tyres. He did a faster final sector on an earlier lap, which was 0.4s quicker.
Photo
Hopefully we have a lull in fast times to find more obscure testing liveries - not the orange McLarens or anything like that, they're not obscure enough! How about this pre-zip livery 1999 BAR?
Stopwatch
Perez now makes a move up to second place overall with a set of C4s, moving team-mate Verstappen down a place with a 1m19.556s - just over 0.3s off Russell's morning benchmark.
Stopwatch
Sainz and Hamilton have improved marginally, with Sainz moving up to P8 with a 1m20.518s, while Hamilton goes P5 with a 1m20.225s on the C3 compound.
Photo
Remember when Arrows ran its Orange (and orange) liveried A21 in all-black during the winter months? Pepperidge Farm remembers:
Photo
Given Mazepin's done nine laps all day in the all-white Haas, it may prove to be one of the more elusive testing liveries. Are we going to use this as an opportunity to dig out obscure liveries from pre-season tests? You betcha.
There's not a lot of running going on right now - just Albon and Ricciardo doing the legwork at the moment. Ricciardo's McLaren just flashed past in a pitlane drive-through and...let's just say it needs a good clean. Heard the MCL36 is also available in orange.
Stopwatch
A brace of personal bests come out of nowhere, as Perez sets a 1m20.441s to go P7 while Hamilton posts a 1m20.410s to sit above him in sixth. They split the Williamses on the timing boards as a result.
Sainz is pushing Hamilton for lappiest (it's a word, trust me bro) driver of the day - Hamilton's now up to 72, Sainz sits on 70. Ferrari's tally for today is 114, just four more than Red Bull's count of 110.
Twitter
On the main @autosport Twitter account, Luke Smith will be answering your questions over the next 30 minutes. Got a burning question? Ask away!
As Hamilton clocks onto 70, Mercedes has 136 laps for the day so far. Meanwhile, Sainz posts a 1m20.883s to go P10.
Thanks to his near ever-presence on the circuit this afternoon, Hamilton has the most laps of the day of all the drivers - with 69. Nice.
Hamilton returns to the circuit after a short spell in the garage. Here's an artist's impression of the work done in the Mercedes car hole:
"The Williams is smoking again - a big plume when Albon steps on the gas each time out of Turn 5."
We've got an hour and 20 minutes left - and Sainz, Perez and Albon are all on-track. All former and present team-mates of some gentleman named Max Verstappen.
Ricciardo meanwhile moves up to eighth in the standings after logging a 1m20.790s - jumping above McLaren team-mate Norris.
That's an early bath for three teams - and with an hour and a half to go, it's unclear if we'll see Yuki Tsunoda this afternoon.
Twitter
"Looks like it wasn’t knackered C3s giving Hamilton trouble at Turn 4 - he’s repeatedly locking his left front even on fresh C2s. It doesn’t seem to be costing him speed through the corner, but it won’t help come the end of a high-fuel stint."
Hamilton comes in to the pitbox, and the mechanics treat it as a live pitstop practice scenario. Three tyres go on relatively swiftly, but a sticky right-rear causes a slight delay. Engine off, and it's back into the garage for the Mercedes.