Vettel fastest, Kubica quicker than Stroll

Sebastian Vettel has finished top of the timesheet on the final day of tyre testing at the Yas Marina circuit – the last on-track action until February.

The Ferrari driver set a best time of 1:37.551 in the morning session, two tenths quicker than Kimi Raikkonen managed on Tuesday, and racked up 117 laps in process of testing a variety of new tyres including the 2018 pink-striped hypersofts.

Valtteri Bottas improved to P2 and to within one second of Vettel in the afternoon, on a day where he completed 141 laps in the W08, whilst Max Verstappen also surpassed a century of laps on his way to third.

Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon split sessions in the Force India garage and finished P4 and P5 respectively and Carlos Sainz rounded off the top six in the Renault.

A certain Robert Kubica returned to the Williams FW40 for the final two hours of the session and rose to P7 with a best time of 1:39.485. That was 0.095 seconds quicker than Lance Stroll’s best on Tuesday after testing out some of the softer tyre compounds.

It was also half a second quicker than Sergey Sirotkin in P10, who took on the bulk of the work at Williams on the final day.

Sandwiched in between the two Williams drivers were Stoffel Vandoorne in the McLaren and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.

Charles Leclerc completed the most laps, 149 in total, on his way to P11 in the Sauber. Lando Norris (McLaren) and Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso) completed the timesheet.

1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1’37″551 118 laps
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1’38″490 00″939 141
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1’38″736 01″185 132
4 Sergio Perez Force India 1’38″818 01″267 52
5 Esteban Ocon Force India 1’39″148 01″597 72
6 Carlos Sainz Renault 1’39″444 01″893 109
7 Robert Kubica Williams 1’39″485 01″934 28
8 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren 1’39″782 02″231 105
9 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1’39″810 02″259 124
10 Sergey Sirotkin Williams 1’39″947 02″396 86
11 Charles Leclerc Sauber 1’40″666 03″115 149
12 Lando Norris McLaren 1’41″714 04″163 118
13 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso 1’43″345 05″794 61
14 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 1’44″827 07″276 63