Grosjean racks up the laps for Haas

The 30-year-old Frenchman recorded 76 laps around 4.655-kilometre, 16-turn circuit to bring his two-week testing total to 346 laps. Banbury team-mate Kevin Magnussen secured 369 total laps during the same time period.

Grosjean’s quickest time on the last day of testing was a 1:21.110, which was also his quickest lap of pre-season testing. Grosjean set his fast time on his 61st lap while riding on a new set of Pirelli P Zero Purple ultrasoft tires. The mark put Grosjean tenth overall among the 13 drivers participating in Friday’s session.

Grosjean said: “Well, you never feel totally prepared after testing and before you head to Australia.

“We only have eight days, of which you only get four as a driver and one of those was the wet day I had last week. Yes, the big teams are ready, but for us there are still a few unknowns going to Melbourne.

“That’s the charm of Formula One. That said, I think we have some good ideas where we can improve the car and, hopefully, the updates we’re going to get in Australia will go our way.

“I think both myself and Kevin [Magnussen] have identified where we can gain some performance.”

Team boss Guenther Steiner added: “It was definitely not our best day. We had quite a few issues with the handling of the car.

“We couldn’t find a good balance. In the afternoon we had a few problems and we stopped early due to a water leak.

“We couldn’t get it fixed in time. We didn’t finish our race simulation, unfortunately. All in all, the test was, up until Friday, pretty good. We now go back and see what happened, analyse data and see what we can do to get ready for Melbourne.”