Barcelona Final Test Day Three: Hamilton in Command as Ferrari and Williams battle

Having shown their pace yesterday, Mercedes again lorded it over their rivals with another dominant performance on the penultimate day of winter testing in Barcelona.

But the signs are that the battle for second between Ferrari and Williams is going to be exciting when the season kicks off in two weeks' time.

Lewis Hamilton produced a strong lap on soft Pirellis to eclipse Felipe Massa's best effort by 0.24s, an impressive performance given that the latter –along with most of the other runners – set their best times on supersoft rubber. The track wasn't in the best induction today, grip was low and colder temperatures towards the end of the day affected the lap times.

The world champion was one of the least busy drivers on the day, Mercedes contenting themselves with 76 laps, the second fewest of the nine teams in action. Along with McLaren, Mercedes was the only team in action today to do less than 100 laps, with Force India covering an astonishing 158 laps on only its second day of running.

Massa topped the time sheets at lunchtime after recording a 1:23.262s lap that would remain his best of the day. Williams parked their FW37 with an hour to go with 102 laps on the board, actually the third lowest total of the day as most teams  focused on long runs.

Kimi Raikkonen had an altogether busier day, pounding out 136 laps in addition to challenging Massa for the morning best time. Ferrari bolted supersoft tyres within seconds of Williams just before the end of morning running and Raikkonen's response was a time within 14 thousandths of Massa's.

Both Williams and Ferrari will be pleased when they drill down into the speed trap and sector time data. Williams did 332km/h and Ferrari 33okm/h top speeds on the straight and yet both were only a tenth and a half down on the Mercedes in the tell-tale final sector for low-speed downforce. Both teams look very purposeful as the testing reaches its final stages and clearly there will be a great fight between them in Melbourne and the early races.

Carlos Sainz Junior added a race simulation to his week's work and managed fourth fastest time seconds before his Toro Rosso stopped at turn three within 10 minutes of the end of the day.

Romain Grosjean was another driver who managed a race simulation and the Lotus driver also managed to improve his day's best towards the end of the day to go fifth.

Marcus Ericsson ended the day sixth fastest for Sauber. The Swede was coming to the end of his second race test of the week, and the third for the team, when his car failed at turn three, bringing out the first red flag of the day with 35 minutes remaining.

It was another hugely impressive day for Force India whose race to play catch up with the VJM08 introduced yesterday produced the highest lap tally of the day by Nico Hulkenberg.

McLaren's day was less than positive than yesterday. Kevin Magnussen, subbing for Fernando Alonso, was delighted to be back in the cockpit but an oil leak meant no running in the afternoon and he and his team had to be content with a 39-lap tally for the day.

Slowest of all was Daniel Ricciardo who also conducted a race simulation for Red Bull.

Barcelona Second Test - Day Three

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m23.022s 76 laps

2 Felipe Massa Williams 1m23.262s +0.240 102

3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m23.276s +0.254 136

4 Carlos Sainz Jr Toro Rosso 1m24.191s +1.169 132

5 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m24.200s +1.178 116

6 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m24.477s +1.455 123 laps

7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m24.939s +1.917 158

8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1m25.225s +2.203 39