Last day of pre-season testing in Barcelona ends with Hamilton setting the fastest time and the most laps, after his teammate had topped the morning session with no trouble. Trouble that was the key word of the morning, as the session had to be halted for five times, with four teams being forced to put an early end to testing, leaving Schumacher, Stroll, Tsunoda and Ocon with no laps for the day.

But let’s have a closer look at how things went down on this day 3.

Morning session

Verstappen is the first driver to go out on track, shortly followed by Vettel, Gasly, Russell and Zhou, all running aero rakes.

Aero rakes are also on Fernando Alonso’s Alpine, as he comes out for an installation lap. Running for Ferrari is Charles Leclerc, while last to join are Lando Norris and Alex Albon. Nikita Mazepin is out on all-white car after Haas has decided to remove flag colors and Uralkali branding following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After almost one hour of long run action in a cloudy and chilly Barcelona, with Russell, Verstappen and Leclerc setting the fastest times, Alonso takes the top spot with a 1m21.242s on Mediums, followed closely by Lando Norris who puts his McLaren in 2^nd closing the lap in 1m21.865s.

The first red flag of the session is waved to allow the removal of a very smoky Alpine from sector 3, marking the end of testing for the team who won’t be returning on track in the afternoon. The fire on Alonso’s car was triggered by a hydraulics issue, as Alpine later explained.

At the restart it’s Max Verstappen topping the timesheet, as he marks a 1m21.192s, followed by a 1m20.683s on C3 tyres. George Russell is behind him with a 1m20.767s, while Norris is third followed by Leclerc and Vettel. As teams set on long run programmes, Verstappen leads and Norris sets his personal best at 1m20.862s.

Meanwhile Zhou despite closing his personal best laps remains at the back in 9^th collecting data for Alfa Romeo who has encountered quite a few issues since the start of testing. A suspected leak forces Mazepin back into the garage for a check after completing only nine laps so far.

Halfway through the session Verstappen is still quickest with a 1m19.765s, with Russell in second (1m20.556s for him) and Nicholas Latifi’s Williams coming in third with a time of 1m20.699s on C4s.

The Canadian has come out midsession, after his teammate Albon had started out earlier this morning.

As the temperature raises to 13.9 degrees, Russell takes the top spot closing his lap in 1m19.608s on Softs, leaving Verstappen two-tenths behind. Third place for Leclerc that marks a 1m20.308s on his C3 tyres.

A second halt is necessary after Gasly’s Alpha goes off the track in the middle sector.

The session is resumed with Russel at the top, still followed by Verstappen and Leclerc, but another red flag is waved as Zhou loses the rear of his Alfa Romeo and spins at Turn 10.

The session is resumed with 40 minutes to go and Sebastian Vettel instantly moves up to third, after closing the lap in a 1m19.905s on C4s, while Russell goes in 1m19.233s on C5s in an asphalt that’s warming up to 19 degrees.

Roughly 10 minutes after the restart another red flag halts the session, as Zhou stops on track in the final sector.

The green flag is waved shortly after, only for the fifth red flag of the day to put a final stop to the morning session, as Vettel is forced to stop in sector 3 due to an engine issue.

Afternoon session

Last session in Barcelona and it's time for the Pirelli wet tyre test. Over the one hour long break following this morning's session,

the track has been soaked using water tankers to empty water at slow speeds.

The first car to go out on track is Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren on full wets. The Australian had quite a bit of time to run solo before going back into the pits to switch to Inters and improve his time to  1m42.814s. Latifi is the second driver to head out, followed by Hamilton, who soon pits for a new set of Inters.

Latifi improves and closes his lap in 1m42.638s, while Perez and Sainz join in, with the Ferrari being the only car out on wet tyres.

Ricciardo's time improves to 1m40.982s, while Sainz manages a 1m41.808s getting the most out of Perez's slipstream.

Both Hamilton and Ricciardo don't get down the 1.39s mark, as it's Albon who sets the quickest lap of the afternoon so far with a 1m37.768s.

The Williams driver has switched once again with his teammate Nicholas Latifi.

As the asphalt begins to dry out Sainz switches to Inters and sets a 1m35.226s, topped by Perez who puts his Red Bull ahead of the Ferrari with a 1m34.691s.

One hour into the session Bottas comes out on track for the first time today on Inters and sets a 1m33.756s after a few tries, before switching to C3s and setting a 1m30.433s.

Times continue to improve and Perez sets a 1m21.921s on C2s, while Albon rises up to 5^th on the timesheet with a 1m20.318s on C4 tyres.

Hamilton goes back into the garage before Mercedes takes the chance to practice a pitstop.

As Albon goes out if Turn 5 smoke comes out of his Williams, but there seems to be no particular issue.

As we approach the last our of the session, Hamilton has collected more laps than any other driver for the day, going for his 70th, making it a total of 136 laps for Mercedes so far today.

Quite a few problems for teams, as Aston Martin, AlphaTauri and Haas couldn’t go out again this afternoon.

In the closing stages Hamilton goes out on C4 tyres and improves his time to 1m19.141s, only to switch to C5s and go even quicker with a 1m19.138s. An improvement for Sainz as well, who closes his last lap in 1m20.072s on C3s.