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The Australian's time of one minute 18.047
seconds on the new hypersoft Pirelli tires lit up the timing
screens on the second day of the final pre-season test at the
Circuit de Catalunya.
The time was more than a second quicker than Lewis Hamilton's
2017 Spanish Grand Prix pole position of 1:19.149 for Mercedes,
and also quicker than any lap in last year's winter testing.
Track records set in testing are deemed unofficial.
Four-times world champion Hamilton, who was fastest last week,
was second on the timesheets with a lap 0.043 seconds slower on
the ultrasoft tires with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel third.
"There's three quick teams and there's no doubt that Red Bull
are going to be people that we are going to be fighting with
this year," Mercedes technical head James Allison told Sky
Sports.
"There's clearly no doubt about that... there's still some
blurriness, it's still not possible to say for sure whether
we've got our nose in front of them or they've got their nose in
front of us.
"But you can say it's close."
Vettel, who did 171 laps on Tuesday when he was fastest, was
drafted in for the morning after team mate Kimi Raikkonen felt
unwell.
McLaren's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest at the halfway
point, with teams deciding not to break for lunch to make up for
bad weather last week, and did 47 laps before pulling over with
smoke coming from the car.
The team detected an oil leak and decided to change the Renault
engine, costing the Spaniard several hours of much-needed track
time.
"Even when you have a small problem, the world is watching,"
said McLaren's executive director Zak Brown of a stoppage that
revived painful memories of the now-terminated Honda partnership
with its regular engine failures.
"We know what the issues are, they're all easily fixed," added
the American.
"Of course you'd like to do more laps but we don't think we have
any problems. So we're not concerned."
The season starts in Australia on March 25.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Christian
Radnedge)
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