McLaren rookie Lando Norris was fastest on the first day of the second Formula 1 pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona, despite finding reliability issues.
Norris’ 1m22.306s time set early in the morning session had been McLaren’s fastest time of the day up until the final hour of running.
Equipped with the C5 tyres – the softest compound in Pirelli’s range – Norris posted a 1m17.709s time to edge Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly off of top spot.
Soon after vaulting to the top of the times, Norris stopped on track for the second time in the day. The first was caused by a hydraulic problem on the MCL34 before lunch.
McLaren was not the only team who suffered a truncated programme through unreliability. Both Ferrari and Mercedes’ mileage was hampered, as the Scuderia stumbled across cooling issues in the morning, while Valtteri Bottas stopped on track with an oil pressure problem after just one lap at the start of the afternoon session.
Ferrari still managed to clear over 100 laps, with Charles Leclerc’s modest 29 laps from the morning session bolstered by Sebastian Vettel’s trouble free afternoon as he clocked 81 laps.
Lewis Hamilton completed 83 laps for Mercedes in the morning session and while Bottas did eventually return to the track late in the day, he only managed seven laps in total.
Gasly ended up second on the timesheet, just 0.006s adrift of Norris’ benchmark as Red Bull clocked another 136 laps as the engine Honda continues to prove reliable.
Lance Stroll was third in Racing Point’s strongest showing so far, ahead of Vettel – who ran on the C3 and C4 tyres – in fourth place.
Antonio Giovinazzi topped the timesheet in the morning session, but did not improve during the afternoon, with Alfa Romeo completing 99 laps and ending up fifth.
Alexander Albon cleared a century of laps for Toro Rosso and finished sixth, while Leclerc was seventh.
Having been the first to clear the 100-lap mark, Kevin Magnussen was eventually pipped by Gasly in the mileage stakes. Magnussen pedalled his Haas to 131 laps and eighth place on the timesheet as the team enjoyed a trouble-free day.
After missing two days of running in the opening pre-season test, Williams notched 119 laps with George Russell at the wheel as it looked to make up for lost time.
The team spent the morning running systems checks on the FW42 before showing more pace in the afternoon.
The Renault and Mercedes drivers made up the bottom four positions on the timesheet. Renault recorded the most laps of any team on Tuesday, as Nico Hulkenberg’s 80 laps during the morning were followed by a 77 lap haul from Daniel Ricciardo.
