Bahrain Day 3: Hamilton quickest as Red Bull and Renault troubles continue

Lewis Hamilton marked his return to the Mercedes cockpit on day three of Bahrain Formula 1 pres-eason testing by going faster than anyone so far this week, and driving home the fact that Mercedes power has the edge for now with both McLaren and Williams faring well on the day.
Lap times continued to tumble with Hamilton’s best of 1.34.263 well over half a second up on the previous day’s best, on the Soft Pirelli tyres as opposed to the Super-soft used by Kevin Magnussen for his best time on Wednesday. Hamilton was also quickest with the Medium compounds, doing 1:34s with those bolted on.

A “small hydraulic problem” on the W05 cost the Briton track time, but he nevertheless managed 67 tours of the Sakhir circuit. The Silver Arrows appear to be top of the pecking order at this very early stage of the season.

The troubles at Lotus continued with Pastor Maldonado having his first official run for the team. Things started well, before problems struck. As a result he only managed 26 laps in the E22. On the bright side the Venezuelan was the first Renault powered driver to dip below 100 seconds around the grand prix venue on the day.

World Champions Red Bull were forced to wrap up their day early – an hour or so before the end of the day, they wheeled the RB10 into the garage and brought a premature end to Daniel Ricciardo’s first outing in Bahrain. He was eighth fastest, with 28 laps on the chart and 6.5 seconds down on the day’s best lap time.