Barcelona Testing Day 3:McLaren hits trouble as Maldonado finishes on top

Following two days of intense testing that saw many team simulating race distances, the third day of testing in Barcelona saw Lotus’ driver Pastor Maldonado topping the time charts on a day that had five cars breaking the century lap count.

Pastor Maldonado in the Lotus E23 hybrid completed a solid 104 laps and topped the time charts with a 1:24.348 which was set on soft tyres.  This comes after he topped the time charts on Thursday as well, confirming that the team are doing well with the new Mercedes power unit in place.

McLaren’s vows continued today after troubled filled two days. With a faulty MGU-K seal restricting their run on Thursday, the issue came back today to haunt the already very troubled team. They stopped early on the track and could only complete 24 laps setting, sitting on the bottom of the time charts, being 5s off the pace. The team does say that a replacement is coming and they’ll resume normal running tomorrow, all doesn’t look well for the team.

17 year old rookie-Max Verstappen had another  strong day in the cockpit, driving his Torro Rosso STR10 with 129 laps under his belt and the second best time of the day. His day though ended in a poor fashion when he pulled over at the pit exit, bringing out a red flag

Lewish Hamilton in his Mercedes was third best and completed a very solid 101 laps after having a limited run of the W06 on Thursday due to ill health.

Ferrari had a poor start to the day with Sebastien Vettel slipping off into the gravels in his first lap itself due to cold tyres. Much like always, Vettel’s luck supported him and he walked away without a damaged chassis which helped him complete 105 laps in his Ferrari and finishing 5th on the time charts.

Sauber had a gearbox issue with Marcus Ericsson’s C34 which restricted their running to a mere 53 laps, most of which were covered after the lunch. Mercedes reserve and Force India’s recruit for testing, Paul Wehrlein continued to gain more and more experience of an F1 car completing a good 81 laps though being 8th on the time charts, driving the 2014 Force India car.

Continuing from where they left behind from yesterday, Red Bull had another good day with new recruit-Daniil Kvyat managing 111 laps and setting the sixth fastest time, besides managing a race simulation and a short stint on short tyres.

Williams had some different goals than the rest of the pack. They switched their drivers at mid day, from Felipe Massa who had completed 55 laps to Valtteri Bottas who aimed at pit stops and did not set an official time until minutes before the end of the final session.

With the three days already over, the last day of the Barcelona Testing will be particularly crucial for one team-McLaren.

With all the other top teams already showing good potential of their cars, McLaren is surely lacking behind due to their inability to manage the Honda Power Unit.  Let’s see how tomorrow unfolds.