Lewis Hamilton finished fastest on the third day of Formula One testing in Bahrain on Friday, and for most of the time no other driver could get within three seconds of his best time.

In the end his old McLaren team-mate Jenson Button got closest, completing 103 laps, including 75 in the afternoon. He was followed by Felipe Massa (Williams) and Esteban Gutiérrez (Sauber).

The day belonged to the Mercedes driver Hamilton, who completed 67 laps and gave further evidence that his team look the likely frontrunners when the F1 season starts in Melbourne on 16 March.

It was another frustrating day for Red Bull and Renault in general. On Thursday Sebastian Vettel completed 59 laps, the team’s best testing day of the year. But on Friday his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo managed just 28, and only five in the afternoon. And it was also a very testing day for Lotus, another Renault customer, with Pastor Maldonado twice responsible for red flags. Williams, who have impressed in pre-season and are thought to be something of a dark horse with their Mercedes engine, focused on pitstop practice, and Massa and Valtteri Bottas each had half a day’s running.

Hamilton said: “It was nice to be able to put together a good lap because generally speaking there seems to be less grip available than last year. I’m looking forward to completing a race simulation next week as we didn’t quite get to finish it today. It was a really busy session – my engineers looked exhausted and I’ve never seen that before!

“It was good to put some laps on the car without any major issues. We actually did a race distance in the afternoon, and it was nice to do that so early in testing. Still, that session showed us we still have a lot of work to do.

“The thing we really need to focus on is fully understanding fuel-saving, and the communication required between the driver and engineer. I think we’ll get on top of things, though, because we’re traditionally very good at that.”