Pre-season book-ended by McLaren pain, but Alonso shines late on

The final day of pre-season testing returned to a familiar theme, with McLaren once again failing to utilise the full day as teams brought their plans to a close in Barcelona. The oil leak that hindered Fernando Alonso earlier in the week came back to bite him as running was once again truncated.

As in the very first day of pre-season testing, Alonso's car required attention during the first hour of the session when he pulled up at turn seven.

It once again lost the Spaniard vital track time in the final day of testing before the Australian Grand Prix.

Alonso stopped the clock at one minute 16.720 seconds in the final 10 minutes of the session, the quickest time recorded all fortnight, but any celebrations were cut short as the lap was expunged due to exceeding track limits.

Sporting director Eric Boullier has earlier explained their latest problem and suggested that a bold approach compared to other teams in 2018 is behind McLaren's recent reliability issues.

"We had a turbo issue which was related actually to the chassis oil leak we had, a consequence if you want," Boullier said.

Strong teamwork in the garage gets Fernando back on track to continue win the afternoon’s run plan. #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/zKZNpke8py — McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 9, 2018

“We want to be competitive; we have an ambitious design. You can see that the car is a little bit different from the other Renault engine cars. So far we had minor issues, but that was because we did not do a good enough job to prepare the car. We are a little bit stretched in terms of lead time and delayed."

Though Alonso's late flyer was chalked off, he did end the day with the second-fastest time, behind Kimi Raikkonen.

Like his Ferrari colleague Sebastian Vettel a day earlier, Raikkonen ended the morning with a string of blisteringly quick laps, but he was unable to lower Vettel's unofficial lap record, clocking 1:17.221, a tenth slower.

Alonso's best came in at 1:17.784, which at least made McLaren the only team to dip below 1min 18secs in the past fortnight, other than the Scuderia.

Despite Ferrari's displays of one-lap prowess, Mercedes once again refused to respond in kind, with Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton putting in long runs.

Bottas suggested earlier in the day that the Silver Arrows were happy to keep their cards close to their chest, but he and Hamilton put together 201 laps across the day, taking the team beyond 1000 for the fortnight in an ominous show of their champion reliability.

#F1Testing done!???? Here are today's final results @Circuitcat_eng

(Spoiler: softer and faster news from #Pirelli available here https://t.co/TeCixOdvcn!) pic.twitter.com/QDlS5In1DQ — Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) March 9, 2018