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The seven-time world champion was thus a tenth faster than teammate George Russell, followed by Red Bull drivers Sergio PĂ©rez and Max Verstappen.
Times mean little during the test days, however. It is unclear how much petrol is used on board and which engine is used. For the teams it is much more about collecting data, to prepare the brand new cars as best as possible for the first race in Bahrain on March 20.
It seems clear that Ferrari has said a good step forward, something that was already whispered in the paddock last year. The Scuderia was also the most productive of all the teams in Barcelona. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz completed 439 laps together over three days. Mercedes (393 laps), McLaren (367 laps) and Red Bull (358 laps) will follow. Haas only went around 160 times.
There were problems on Friday for Alpine, Aston Martin, Haas and AlphaTauri, who were unable to take action during the afternoon session due to various technical issues.
