Lotus and Maldonado regain control

After the rain arrived at the end of the morning, the drivers returned to the track at the start of the afternoon under warmer skies. Enough to allow Pastor Maldonado (Lotus) to steal the best cumulative time of these first three Catalan days at Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull), which had dominated since yesterday. The driver of the E23 Hybrid was the fastest in 1'24 "348, time completed on super-soft tires, and will hand over the baton tomorrow to the French Romain Grosjean.

Just like Maldonado, Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso) was in great spirits this Saturday. Author of the best time this morning, the Dutchman is part of the club of five drivers with the Venezuelan, the British Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), the German Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) and the Russian Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull) to have crossed the barrier of 100 completed laps. Hamilton ranks 3rd having slightly improved his best time in the afternoon ahead of the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson, who made up the time lost this morning following gearbox problems on his C34. Vettel is 5th ahead of Kvyat.

Felipe Massa maintains the seventh time of the day, established this morning, since the Brazilian did not ride after the break, replaced by his teammate at Williams Valtteri Bottas. Wehrlein (Force India) and Jenson Button (McLaren) complete the day's ranking. The 2009 World Champion was slowed down this Saturday by the same problem already occurred Thursday on the MGU-K of its McLaren MP4-30 powered by the Honda Power Unit. The Briton was nevertheless able to return to the track with a car with limited power.

The last day will be followed live on our website, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Photos from the Barcelona tests can be viewed here.

Ranking Day 3 Barcelona:

1. Pastor Maldonado (Lotus): 1’24″348? 104 rounds
2. Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso): 1’24″739? 129
3. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes): 1’26″076? 101
4. Marcus Ericsson (Sauber): 1’26″340 – 53
5. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari): 1’26″407 – 105
6. Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull): 1’26″589 – 112
7. Felipe Massa (Williams): 1’26″912 – 55
8. Pascal Wehrlein (Force India): 1’27″333 – 81
9. Valtteri Bottas (Williams): 1’27″556 – 49
10. Jenson Button (McLaren): 1’29″151 – 24