Lewis Hamilton brings the Barcelona shakedown to an end as he edges out Lando Norris for best time of the week.

However, in much the same way that none of the times mean that much, those posted in the final hour of today's session mean even less, for they were essentially F1's version of psyops meant to scare the opposition whilst boosting one's own troops morale.

The seven-time world champion wasn't alone in going for a last ditch 'death or glory' bid, with Lando Norris and Max Verstappen getting in on the fun.

Once again, Ferrari had both drivers on duty, Charles Leclerc this morning and Hamilton this afternoon, McLaren, Haas and Audi employed a similar strategy.

Thankfully there were no serious reliability issues today, and no red flags, allowing the twelve drivers on duty to get in some decent running.

That said, while the likes of Haas was completing 191 laps, Alpine 164, McLaren 163, Audi 144 and Ferrari 141, Cadillac completed just 54 and Aston Martin 49.

"It was good again," Leclerc told F1TV after completing his week's work. "We went through our programme, we did everything we wanted to do. We pushed a little bit more as well which was nice, to feel a little bit the limit of this car and to understand a little bit more of it as well.

"I'm happy," he continued, "because again we've gone through our programme and done everything we wanted. It has been a positive week.

"I think there's a lot of excitement," he added, "not only in Ferrari but I think around the whole paddock. It's an exciting time for Formula 1 where there's so much change that we've got to adapt as drivers, we've got to adapt as teams and try and find ways to maximise what is now our new package and especially with this energy management that is so much more important compared to the past.

"So yeah, excitement but apart from that not so much more, I mean it's still very, very early days so yeah, just really looking forward to see what we'll learn in Bahrain and just focus on ourselves for now."

"It was good," added Oscar Piastri, who, like Leclerc, drove this morning before handing over to his teammate. "It was nice to get some good laps on the board this morning. A much smoother day than the first two we had, so that was nice.

"I feel like I got into a pretty good rhythm and was able to feel what the car is actually like, which was nice," he added. "I tried a few things to see how we can improve it and stuff like that. Just trying running it in different configurations and settings to see what it's like on race weekends. All in all a pretty successful morning.

"There's still definitely a lot to learn," he admitted, "especially on the power unit side of things... how you get the most out of it and how you go the fastest. Still plenty of things to learn there.

"We understood some of the problems, limitations and some of the things that are different compared to last year, both on the power unit and the car," he added. "The car itself has a lot less downforce compared to last year, both on the power unit and the car. The car itself has a lot less downforce compared to last year, so getting used to that and how that feels is the biggest thing we have started to get ourselves into."

It was an altogether more positive day for Audi also.

"It was positive," said Gabriel Bortoleto. "We lost a few hours at the beginning of the day with a few issues we had. Then as soon as we fixed it we had an amount of good laps. We put 50 laps on the board.

"Obviously not as much as I would like," he admitted, "but already a start for me because in the first day I didn't run anything.

"It's very positive to get to understand our car a little bit better, and put some mileage on our car and power unit.

"I need to go back to the factory next week, doing a bit of correlation in the simulator, trying to understand what we need to improve in the car and in the simulator to make it more realistic. And then start working for there. Obviously, we have a lot of changes coming to Bahrain, new track, different weather as well.

"We are in a very cold place right now. So everything will change. And obviously, we hope that we improve a lot our car for the next test and we start working from there."

"The more we run the more we learn and I think we are really in that stage," insisted team boss, Mattia Binotto. "We know for us there is a lot to build, a lot to grow," he continued. "These three days of running have been very important. We are doing well for where we are in our journey.

"The reliability is always very critical. We had several problems, small ones, not dramatic, but there are a lot of positives and we are looking forward."