adminof laps when he was two seconds faster than anyone else.
Hamilton ended up 0.234 seconds faster than Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, with Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne third.
The teams are at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya for four days ahead of the first race in Australia next month.
The forecast is for intermittent rain on Thursday, heavier rain and high winds on Friday before a dry weekend. The test finishes on Sunday.
All 11 teams are in attendance, alternating their drivers through the test in different ways. There were a number of incidents in the session, including off-track excursions for Lotus driver Romain Grosjean and Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez.
Red Bull’s Mark Webber was fourth fastest ahead of Force India’s Paul di Resta, who still does not officially have a team-mate.
Force India are expected to announce imminently that the only remaining vacant seat in F1 will go to German Adrian Sutil, who did not race in 2012 but spent five years with the team in their various guises from 2007-11.
There is also some doubt about whether Brazilian novice Luiz Razia will end up racing for Marussia.
The Anglo-Russian team announced the former GP2 front-runner as their driver this month but although Razia was scheduled to drive on Thursday, his English team-mate Max Chilton was in the car.
This also happened at last week’s second pre-season test and it is understood there is some form of financial dispute between Razia and the team which may end up with him losing his drive.
Names being mentioned as possible replacements are the former Renault, McLaren and Caterham driver Heikki Kovalainen and Force India reserve driver Jules Bianchi. – BBC Sport
Online Reporter