Day 3 Morning Round Up: Bottas drops times as Vettel/Ferrari suffer engine problem

1:15.732 Was the time Bottas set to lead the morning on the C4 soft compound tyre. A time that was only 0.3 seconds off his pole position time in Barcelona last year, and quicker than teammates Lewis Hamilton’s P2 time of 1:16.040 last year.

Not only that but the Finn also used the ‘Dual Axis Steering’ system that was the hot topic of yesterday, while Esteban Ocon lined up second in the timings, followed by Lance Stroll’s Racing Point, Daniil Kvyat’s Alpha Tauri and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

But it was a disappointing session for Ferrari as Vettel came to a stop at turn 12, 90 minutes into the session with what they deemed an engine problem, of which they are yet to determine exactly what the issue was.

The German was unable to run for the rest of the session, but is expected to return in the afternoon with a new engine.

Verstappen spent some time behind closed doors in the Red Bull garage after suffering suspension damage from a yellow kerb before completing 82 laps, the most of all, while Antonio Giovinazzi, Carlos Sainz and Romain Grosjean had a relatively quiet session.

Nicolas Latifi brought out the second red flag of the session in the last hour after losing drive and stopping near the exit of the pit straight as drivers tried out different tyre compounds beforethe lunch break.

Stay tuned for this afternoons action from Barcelona with our liveblog!