(Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team)
Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time on the final day of winter testing at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain today. The Englishman finished the day with a time of 1m 33.278s which was just 0.709s ahead of the Williams of Valtteri Bottas who was course to top the time sheets for the Grove squad until he damaged the car coming along the main straight, bringing out the red flags.
Despite the accident, the first time that the team had stopped out on track during winter testing they can be extremely satisfied with the work that they have done over course of the pre-season testing period.
Fernando Alonso was third fastest for Ferrari as the team continued to rack up the mileage in the F14T. The Spaniards running was disrupted when he pulled off the circuit at 1.10PM (Irish time) with a problem despite this however he managed to get back on track and finished just ahead of Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.
Jean Eric Vergne was the fastest Renault powered car in his Toro Rosso which was a great result for the Frenchman and the Italian team as they have suffered with a number of major issues relating to the Renault power unit.
It was an extremely productive and impressive day for the Marussia F1 Team as Max Chilton was seventh fastest for the Banbury based squad. He was the meat in a Sauber F1 Team sandwich as Adrian Sutil was 6th fastest while Esteban Gutierrez was 8th fastest. Gutierrez brought out the red flag towards the end of the session with what was described by the team as 'a fuel system check' and that there was nothing wrong with the car.
Sebastian Vettel was 9th fastest for Red Bull Racing despite spending a large part of the morning in the garage as the team suffered more problems with the RB10. Despite the team's issues it proved to be a very productive day mileage wise for the Milton Keynes team as Vettel completed 77 laps which was more then the team had managed to complete during any other day in testing.
Jenson Button was 10th fastest for McLaren, however as I said earlier today the team have plenty to smile about as they have shown great pace over the course of winter testing. Kamui Kobayashi was 11th for Caterham and completed 106 laps so the Leafield based team are looking good.
The Lotus F1 Team had another day to forget as Romain Grosjean suffered two stoppages on track, the second of which involved the E22 catching fire as a result of this the Frenchman could only complete 32 laps for the Enstone based team which was far from ideal on the final day of testing.
Sunday's running was extended by 25 minutes due to there being a total of eight red flag periods throughout the day and as the team's pack up and head to Australia for the first race of the new season via their HQ it is extremely difficult to predict who will take the victory in Melbourne. We don't have long to wait and this time two weeks we will have our first winner of the 2014 Formula One season.
©Ben Johnston 2014
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