Anyone hoping for a final shoot-out or a qualifying sizzler as pre-season testing came to a close today will have been sorely disappointed.

The fastest lap of the day - the third quickest time of the entire eight-day Barcelona test - was set over an hour before the lunch break, with few significant improvements in the afternoon.

On the other hand, a couple of things we have come to expect proved correct, Jenson Button spent most of the day in his garage whilst Pastor Maldonado brought Lotus' preparations to an early end when he stuffed the E23 in to the barriers fifteen minutes after lunch.

Running on development tyres Rosberg set the early pace, with Nasr and Perez, getting his first taste of the new Force India also looking good.

Fifty minutes into the session came the inevitable message from McLaren. "Bit of a delay with today's programme," said the Woking outfit, "the team are running some system checks, but hope to be out later this morning..."

Running the winter tyre, Bottas posted a 25.099 to go quickest, the Finn subsequently making further improvements on the soft (23.859) and then supersofts (23.63) to post the best time of the morning. Nasr, also on the supersofts, took second with 24.023, while Perez slotted in behind with a 25.113.

Ten minutes before the break, Vettel bolted on a set of supersofts, and despite being quickest in S2 could only manage 23.469, 0.406s off Bottas' time.

When Bottas took to the track after the break we expected to see the Finn challenge for the top spot, but it was not to be, long runs and reliability appeared to be the order of the day.

Daniel Ricciardo caused the first red flag of the day when he ground to a halt in the pitlane - something which has become a bit of a habit for the panda-liveried car. Shortly after lunch, Maldonado went nose first into the barriers at T4, causing the second red flag, and while the damage to the car meant an early end to the Enstone outfit's preparations, the only damage to the Venezuelan was his pride. The third red flag followed when Max Verstappen stopped on track between turns 11 and 12.

Having suffered as ERS issue things were looking bad for Ricciardo but the team got him out again ninety minutes before the end. Likewise Verstappen, the Toro Rosso crew doing well to get the youngster going following an (unspecified) engine problem.

About the same time that Ricciardo returned to the fray, Williams decided to call it a day, clearly happy with its day's (week's?, month's?) work. "So that's winter testing completed for us," said the Grove outfit. "Next stop for the guys is the Australian Grand Prix. Well done team!"

Button, who had completed just one installation lap shortly before the break, saw a little more action in the afternoon, but not much. Over the course of the day he completed just 30 laps, his best time, on super-softs, over 2.2s off Bottas' pace.

Sebastian Vettel is another driver who posted his best time this morning, like several others, he devoted his afternoon to a race simulation.

With around half-an-hour remaining, Mercerdes revealed that Rosberg wasn't "ready to head into the sunset just yet". When the team announced that he was going out on scrubbed softs we wondered if this might be the moment when he might really go for it, but instead practice starts were the order of the day. Nonetheless, at 148 laps the German was one of the busiest men out there.

No surprises then; Mercedes clearly has reliability and pace - and then some - whilst Williams appears to be picking up where it left off at the end of last season. Red Bull hasn't shown its hand, though the Renault seems a lot better, whilst there remains a question mark over Ferrari.

Whilst the midfield teams look to be well matched at this stage, we won't really know about the pace until Saturday in Melbourne, and stamina the day after.

That said, the one team that faces many sleepless nights before then is McLaren. There will be a lot of midnight oil being burned in Woking over the next two weeks.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by F One, 01/03/2015 19:56

"Going by testing we're in for a season that's going to be even more boring than last years was!"

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2. Posted by Hondawho?, 01/03/2015 18:35

"It seems, Herr Wolfe is a shrewd operator, and with contract negotiations coming up with a precocious Hamilton, it would no surprise to me in the least to see the force of the Company Mercedes throw their weight behind Williams if the little baseball capped person decides to "get hard". (They wanted, I am sure #1 on their cars but the little Sh..base ball capped person said "#44 is my number".

What have they to loose and they have everything to gain, and of course they no longer support Mclaren who have won with Mercedes before, so from a PR perspective it would do them good to let another team win. With a Mercedes engine of course! Leverage, don't you just love it :-)

Only IMHO..........

My hopes are that Williams will win the chmpionshop this year and Hamilton may just help them do that."

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Bottas quickest as pre-season testing comes to an end

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