At the last day of the second Barcelona Test, Mercedes-powered cars maintained their superiority over the others(much like most of the test), with Valtteri Bottas clocking the fastest lap of the day: 1:23.063 which was a good 0.4s ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastien Vettel in second despite both using the same super soft tyres. Bottas completed 89 laps today and the team their day more than an hour before the actual end, much like yesterday, despite having no issues with the car.

Vettel had another strong day in the Ferrari with 129 laps but the time gap between him and the Williams is a sign of worry for them. Although Williams’ time is still shy of 1:23.022 and 1:22.792 set up by Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg on softs in the previous days.

Sauber’s Felipe Nasr was third in the time charts and was able to cover the maximum laps of the day-159.Mercedes had a low affair today after setting benchmark times on the previous two days. Nico Rosberg managed a massive 148 laps, but was 2.1s off the pace from the time set up by Bottas.

McLaren continued to face problems. After pretty disappointing day 3, they could only manage 36 laps for today, with only two of them before lunch. Much like always, they faced issues with the Honda Power Unit regarding some sensors, which meant that it had to be taken out for a fix.

The two sister teams of Red Bull and Torro Rosso caused a red flag each. Daniel Ricciardo who was the fifth fastest caused the first red flag of the day stopping at the end of the pitlane due to an ERS issue. He later recovered to clock 72 laps.

Max Verstappen stopped due to an engine issue just after lunch which restricted his running as well. He came on the track 10 minutes before the end of the session for some fast laps session and ended up fourth on the time charts, having completed 85 laps.

Force India had another remarkable day as Sergio Perez managed to complete a massive 129 laps to add on to the impressive first two days of the VJM08. Despite the short age of the car, it is running remarkably well with no performance or reliability issues, a wonderful sign for the team.

Pastor Maldonado lived up to his name and crashed the car heavily into the barriers at Turn 4 damaging the car. The team was unable to fix it on time, which meant that the Venezuelan only managed 36 laps for today, sitting at the bottom of the time charts.

Today marks the end of the winter testing. In just two weeks of time, the nine(or ten) teams will be ready to race their hearts out in Australia. The winter testing times tell us no proper story, but it does tell us that we might be headed towards another season of Mercedes domination followed by Williams, Ferrari and then Red Bull as their closest competitor. McLaren looks shattered and a complete mess right now and as predicted by Boullier, it’ll take them months to be a little competitive.

The middle order is still jam packed and severely close. Besides there’s the added mystery of Marussia/Manor. A lot more needs to be answered. The build up to the first grand prix of the season is set. The season opener in Albert Park is bound to be a cracker!

Much like always, we at ES will have you covered.