Brake issue limits Gasly's running in Barcelona

Pierre Gasly remained upbeat about Toro Rosso's running on the opening day of the second Formula 1 pre-season test in Barcelona, finding plenty of positives to take from the day despite losing the afternoon session to a brake issue.

Gasly completed more laps than any other driver during the first week of testing as Toro Rosso also topped the team mileage charts, and the pair combined for 54 laps in the morning session on Tuesday.

Gasly was due to hand over to teammate Brendon Hartley for the afternoon session to make up for the New Zealander's loss of track time last week, only for a brake issue to prevent Toro Rosso from getting back on-track.

"Today in the morning everything went super-well, but this afternoon we had an issue on the brake system that cost us quite a lot of time because we couldn’t run at all in the afternoon," Gasly said.

"It was a shame, but that’s part of testing, so hopefully we can get everything together for the next two days."

"We thought we would be able to fix it a little bit early but, in the end, it was not possible, so we lost the full afternoon, which is not ideal.

"But it’s part of testing. We need to make sure we have no more issues in the last three days."

Despite the issue, Gasly was pleased with his running through the morning in Barcelona, with his lap proving good enough for fifth in the final timesheets at the end of the day.

"I must say I was really happy with the car this morning. Compared to last week the team made some good improvements, they worked really hard to understand what had happened in the first four days of testing and then made some changes," Gasly said.

"Of course it’s too early to compare with the others, but it’s always nice to set the fifth fastest time of the day, so that’s the positive from today.

"We are going in the right direction, there are still many things we still need to understand about the tyres, the setup. There are still many areas in which we have to improve but I think we are heading in the right direction."