Bottas ends Wednesday on top but Vettel’s speed has Ferrari confident

Vettel fast on harder rubber

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas topped the third day of Formula 1 testing at Barcelona, but Sebastian Vettel's pace in the Ferrari on two levels harder Pirelli tires brought smiles to the Ferrari faces.

Bottas posted a best lap of 1m19.705s in the morning session using ultra-soft rubber and Vettel lapped just 0.247s slower using the soft-compound Pirellis during the afternoon. The Super-soft compound falls between the ultras and softs.

Vettel spent much of the day running on medium-compound Pirellis, but bolted on softs for one run in the afternoon before returning to mediums.

Ride-buyer Lance Stroll crashed his Williams for the 2nd straight day. After his late-day spin on Tuesday and another off just shy of the lunch break earlier on Wednesday, the 18-year-old Canadian caused a third stoppage of the week when he went off and hit the barriers exiting Turn 5, damaging the front end of the Williams FW40.

Lewis Hamilton performed a full race simulation after taking over from Bottas for the afternoon, sticking to medium and soft tires and setting a best time of 1m22.175s on the latter compound.

Fernando Alonso in his Honda-powered MCL32 turned a 1m22.598s, left him 2.893s shy of Bottas' morning effort on the same tire, which means McLaren is out to lunch again in 2017.

DAY 3 RESULTS: