Norris leads opening day of 2nd F1 test, issue sidelines Mercedes

Lando Norris topped the opening day of the second Formula 1 pre-season test in Barcelona on Tuesday as Mercedes lost most of its afternoon running to an issue on its new W10 car.

2019 F1 rookie Norris rose to the head of the timesheets with half an hour left in the day after putting in a lap on the C4 tyres, recording a fastest time of 1m17.709s.

Norris' lap saw him take top spot by six-thousandths of a second from Red Bull's Pierre Gasly, who had led throughout the afternoon after finishing second to Antonio Giovinazzi in the morning.

Despite finishing the day quickest, Norris' day came to an early end after his car stopped between Turn 2 and Turn 3 as he exited the pits following his fastest run, having also been sidelined through the morning by a loss of hydraulic pressure. Both incidents sparked red flags, halting proceedings at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya momentarily.

The only other red flag of the day came courtesy of Valtteri Bottas, who parked up at the side of the track during his first lap out on-track in the afternoon for Mercedes.

After seeing teammate Lewis Hamilton rack up 83 laps in a productive morning, Bottas was forced to park up due to an oil pressure problem that prompted Mercedes into changing the power unit on his car.

The Finn only returned to the track with seven minutes left in the day, meaning he could only manage seven laps of running in total.

Mercedes was not the only team to lose track time on Tuesday as Ferrari missed a chunk of the morning session while it completed checks relating to the cooling system on its car. Charles Leclerc was limited to just 29 laps before handing over to Sebastian Vettel in the afternoon, who managed to finish P4 with over one race distance completed.

Lance Stroll finished a solid third for Racing Point, one-tenth off Norris' benchmark, while lunchtime leader Antonio Giovinazzi ended the day fifth for Alfa Romeo.

Alexander Albon hit a century on the lap charts en route to sixth for Toro Rosso, finishing ahead of Leclerc, while Kevin Magnussen also broke the 100 barrier for Haas in eighth place.

Williams enjoyed its most productive day of the winter so far as George Russell managed 119 laps in the FW42, making up for some of the time lost by the team last week. Having only managed 88 laps prior to today's running, it was an important breakthrough for the team as it ran without any issues.

Renault shared running between its drivers once again, with Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg managing a combined 154 laps in P10 and P13 respectively, the pair split by the Mercedes of Bottas and Hamilton.

Running resumes on Wednesday at 8am GMT.