Vettel keeps Ferrari on top in ultra-soft tyre dogfight

Vettel ousted Ricciardo from the top spot at the start of the third hour with a time just a thousandth slower than his own Monday benchmark of 1m24.939s, just before a red flag interruption as Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso ground to a halt at Turn 13 with a suspected engine problem.

The action soon resumed with Ricciardo undercutting Vettel’s time by seven tenths, before the German responded by becoming the first man to dip under the 1m24s with a 1m23.658s.

It was at that stage that Ricciardo gave the purple-marked ultra-soft its first outing of the week, immediately going fastest on a 1m23.525s – until Vettel struck back moments later with the quickest time of the morning, a 1m22.810s.

Ricciardo nonetheless ended the morning with more miles completed than Vettel, having done 58 to the Ferrari driver’s 46.

Both lagged behind Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes on lap count, who posted 81 laps on his way to the third best time of the morning – albeit two seconds off the pace.

Sergio Perez was fourth for Force India ahead of Marcus Ericsson in the 2015-spec Sauber and Valtteri Bottas’ Williams, with Pascal Wehrlein putting Manor seventh for the morning.

Esteban Gutierrez spent the first 90 minutes of the session in the garage, and set the ninth best time when he emerged with the newly strengthened Haas front wing.

That put him one place ahead of Fernando Alonso in the McLaren, who completed a healthy 70 laps of running on his first morning in the Honda-powered MP4-31 – the second highest total of the morning behind Rosberg.

Tuesday morning test times:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:22.810	46
2	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:23.525	58
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:24.867	81
4	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:25.692	48
5	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:25.734	49
6	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:25.872	56
7	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:25.925	36
8	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:26.189	41
9	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:26.931	32
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:27.198	71
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:27.346	59