Bahrain F1 test summary: Williams and Mercedes take the honours

Felipe Massa went quickest on day three of the test, lapping within a second of Nico Rosberg's pole time for last year's Bahrain Grand Prix and edging out Rosberg's team-mate Lewis Hamilton (fastest on the final day) by two hundredths of a second.

Williams was arguably the strongest performer across the final test, racking up more miles than any other team and suffering just one reliability issue, when the FW36's Mercedes engine blew up on Valtteri Bottas in the closing stages of the final day.

Meanwhile, the works Mercedes team suffered more glitches that hampered its running at this test, leading Rosberg to say that Mercedes is still not reliable enough heading towards the first race in Melbourne.

The W05 required what the team described as a "precautionary" engine change ahead of day three, before a gearbox problem cost Hamilton nearly half the final day's track time.

Red Bull's test started badly when ongoing cooling issues with the RB10 forced Daniel Ricciardo to miss most of the first day and declare the champion squad had "not been up to scratch" in pre-season.

The Australian was more optimistic after a productive second day, during which he clocked 66 laps (including 20 consecutively) and set the third fastest time, but that proved merely a positive blip in an otherwise miserable week.

World champion Sebastian Vettel failed to complete a lap on Saturday (despite two attempts) thanks to electrical problems, before a "mechanical issue at the front of the car" pitched the German off at Turn 1 on Sunday morning.

He returned to the track in the afternoon, but failed to complete a race run while lapping at reduced pace.

Bahrain F1 test gallery

Sister squad Toro Rosso managed more laps, but only went slightly quicker than Ricciardo with Jean-Eric Vergne at the wheel at the end of the final day, while fellow Renault-powered team Lotus suffered a disastrous test.

The Enstone squad found its running scuppered by exhaust problems and engine failures, leading technical director Nick Chester to declare the team's cars would be lucky to make the finish in Melbourne.

Ferrari finally managed to complete race runs with Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, after falling behind with its programme at the previous test.

But both were significantly slower than Mercedes managed, and team principal Stefano Domenicali admitted the Scuderia has "work to do" to catch Mercedes and Williams, which outpaced Alonso on the final day.

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Jenson Button expressed similar sentiments about McLaren's chances after a difficult final test for the Woking team.

Team-mate Kevin Magnussen completed 197 largely trouble-free laps, but wound up only 11th fastest overall, while Button clocked only 74 after suffering a loss of drive on day two and an engine failure on day four.

Force India also had an engine failure on the final day in Bahrain with Nico Hulkenberg driving, but the German's team-mate Sergio Perez hailed the "great step" made by the team since the second test.

The Mexican topped the times on the first two days and managed more than 100 laps on each of them - including an impressive race run on Friday.

Bar the engine problem that robbed Adrian Sutil of a full day's running on Saturday, Sauber again showed the C33 has reasonable reliability but lacks speed. Sutil was only 13th fastest overall, and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez 17th.

Marussia made decent progress with its car at the final test, managing to lap within four seconds of the ultimate pace with Max Chilton at the wheel on the final day, while Caterham clocked more laps but could not get within a second of the pace of its back-of-the-grid rival.

Combined test times:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car              Time       Gap      Day
 1.  Felipe Massa       Williams-Mercedes     1m33.258s           Sat
 2.  Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes              1m33.278s  +0.020s  Sun
 3.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m33.484s  +0.226s  Sat
 4.  Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes     1m33.987s  +0.729s  Sun
 5.  Fernando Alonso    Ferrari               1m34.280s  +1.022s  Sun
 6.  Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m35.290s  +2.032s  Thurs
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari               1m35.426s  +2.168s  Sat
 8.  Nico Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes  1m35.577s  +2.319s  Sun
 9.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Toro Rosso-Renault    1m35.701s  +2.443s  Sun
10.  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull-Renault      1m35.743s  +2.485s  Fri
11.  Kevin Magnussen    McLaren-Mercedes      1m35.894s  +2.636s  Sat
12.  Daniil Kvyat       Toro Rosso-Renault    1m36.113s  +2.855s  Sat
13.  Adrian Sutil       Sauber-Ferrari        1m36.467s  +3.209s  Sun
14.  Max Chilton        Marussia-Ferrari      1m36.835s  +3.577s  Sun
15.  Jenson Button      McLaren-Mercedes      1m36.901s  +3.643s  Fri
16.  Jules Bianchi      Marussia-Ferrari      1m37.087s  +3.829s  Sat
17.  Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari        1m37.303s  +4.045s  Sun
18.  Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m37.468s  +4.210s  Sun
19.  Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault      1m38.083s  +4.825s  Sat
20.  Kamui Kobayashi    Caterham-Renault      1m38.391s  +5.133s  Sun
21.  Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Renault         1m39.302s  +6.044s  Sun
22.  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus-Renault         1m40.599s  +7.341s  Thurs

Total running in test three:

Drivers:
                   Laps  Km
Valtteri Bottas    236   1277
Sergio Perez       213   1152
Felipe Massa       202   1093
Kevin Magnussen    197   1066
Fernando Alonso    196   1060
Esteban Gutierrez  192   1039
Nico Rosberg       192   1039
Nico Hulkenberg    189   1022
Adrian Sutil       181   979
Marcus Ericsson    172   930
Lewis Hamilton     159   860
Jules Bianchi      153   828
Kimi Raikkonen     141   763
Daniil Kvyat       136   736
Jean-Eric Vergne   135   730
Kamui Kobayashi    125   676
Max Chilton        105   568
Daniel Ricciardo   105   568
Sebastian Vettel   78    422
Jenson Button      74    400
Romain Grosjean    65    351
Pastor Maldonado   62    335

Teams:
             Laps  Km
Williams     438   2370
Force India  402   2175
Sauber       373   2018
Mercedes     351   1899
Ferrari      337   1823
Caterham     297   1607
Toro Rosso   271   1466
McLaren      271   1466
Marussia     258   1396
Red Bull     183   990
Lotus        127   687

Engines:
          Laps  Km
Mercedes  1462  7912
Ferrari   968   5238
Renault   878   4751

Total running across pre-season testing:

Drivers:
                   Km
Nico Rosberg       2813
Fernando Alonso    2698
Kevin Magnussen    2471
Valtteri Bottas    2389
Lewis Hamilton     2159
Esteban Gutierrez  2122
Felipe Massa       2034
Adrian Sutil       1917
Nico Hulkenberg    1840
Kimi Raikkonen     1790
Sergio Perez       1777
Jenson Button      1683
Marcus Ericsson    1536
Kamui Kobayashi    1365
Jean-Eric Vergne   1347
Daniil Kvyat       1111
Jules Bianchi      982
Sebastian Vettel   866
Daniel Ricciardo   845
Pastor Maldonado   796
Max Chilton        704
Romain Grosjean    492
Felipe Nasr        471
Robin Frijns       412
Daniel Juncadella  359

Teams:
             Km
Mercedes     4973
Williams     4893
Ferrari      4489
McLaren      4153
Sauber       4039
Force India  3975
Caterham     3313
Toro Rosso   2458
Red Bull     1711
Marussia     1686
Lotus        1288

Engines:
          Km
Mercedes  17994
Ferrari   10214
Renault   8770