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