Leclerc leads opening morning of Barcelona F1 pre-season test

All 10 teams hit the track together for the first time ahead of the new season on Wednesday for the opening day of running at the first pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.

Leclerc led the morning timesheets with a 1m20.165s on Pirelli's C3 tyre, ahead of Lando Norris, who improved on C3s to get within three-tenths of Leclerc just before the lunch break.

On his first official outing as a Mercedes driver, George Russell took third spot, six-tenths down on Leclerc’s benchmark. The Briton will hand over to seven-time Lewis Hamilton for the afternoon session.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth fastest for Aston Martin, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who logged the joint-most laps of the morning with 80.

Fernando Alonso put his Alpine seventh in the order ahead of Nicholas Latifi’s Williams and Nikita Mazepin, while Alfa Romeo reserve driver Robert Kubica rounded out the timings as he got the first chance to drive the team’s camouflaged C42.

Alfa Romeo suffered some small issues during the morning which restricted Kubica’s running, but the Pole finally started setting lap times during the final 20 minutes of the morning session.

This week’s test is one of the most eagerly-anticipated for years with F1 entering a new era following a revolutionary shake-up of the technical regulations over the winter.

There was plenty of intrigue over how the teams have interpreted the rules with many different philosophies on display, while Red Bull caused a stir as its new RB18 broke cover for the first time in public.

Red Bull has gone for an extremely aggressive sidepod design, which immediately caught the eye when the RB18 was properly revealed for the first time.

The afternoon session gets underway at 2pm local time (1pm GMT) following an hour’s break for lunch.