LEWIS Hamilton has missed the final day of this week's testing in Barcelona after Mercedes reported a problem with his car.
Hamilton, who joked on Wednesday night that he would fake a muscle injury to avoid taking part in the concluding day, was scheduled to run at the Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday morning.
But an issue with Hamilton's Mercedes, which has boasted greater reliability than any other team here this week, kept the British driver on the sidelines.
Valtteri Bottas, his new team-mate, took to the car after the problem was resolved and completed nine laps before the lunch break.
"Electrical fault kept us in the garage this morning," Hamilton tweeted. "I've decided with the team not to drive today as I wouldn't have learned much.
"Shame not to drive but it's been a great few days. The guys have done an awesome job. Can't wait to be back in the car next week!"
The final day has been designated as a wet test, with industrial trucks spreading water across the circuit.
"I heard it is wet (on Thursday) so I am not particularly looking forward to that," Hamilton said on Wednesday night. "I drove some demonstration wet tyres at Silverstone and they did not feel great."
He joked: "I am out first unfortunately so I might fake a pulled muscle in the morning and let Valtteri do it."
Hamilton, who missed two full scheduled test days last season - one through a toe injury and the other with illness - has completed 234 laps of the Barcelona track this week and covered nearly 700 miles. Up until Thursday, only Bottas and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel had been on the circuit for a longer time than the Briton.
Hamilton's dominant Mercedes team appear to be the class of the field so far this year, with Ferrari not too far behind.
And while Hamilton, the three-time former world champion, has hailed the new cars as the best-looking for a number of years and the fastest he has ever driven, he fears the increase in downforce could lead to fewer overtakes and worse racing.
"The car is amazing in terms of the speed that we get to carry through the corners," said the 32-year-old, who is set to start his 11th campaign in the sport. "It definitely is the fastest that I have ever driven in Formula One.
"It is great and it feels amazing in the car and I hope that is splits the men from the boys.
"But it is worse to follow another car, which was to be expected. Let's hope the racing is fantastic, but don't hold your breath, I would say."
The second and concluding four-day test starts on Tuesday. Melbourne's Albert Park plays host to the opening grand prix on March 26.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here