Lando Norris managed to set the fastest overall time in the opening pre-season session at Barcelona for McLaren supplanting the benchmark set by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Leclerc topped the morning session with the time of 1m 20.165s before Lando Norris eclipsed it by improving to 1m 19.568s by the end of Day 1. That bumped Leclerc down to P2 and his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz to third.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel dropped from P4 in the morning to sixth overall before his teammate Lance Stroll (P13) took the wheel in the afternoon. AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda enjoyed a full day’s running and clocked 121 laps to take seventh overall ahead of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso (P8).
The reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen completed the most laps of any with 147 before finishing P9.
Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas finished P10 with the Finn completing just under 25 laps with reserve driver Robert Kubica having completed a handful of morning installation laps to end up 16th.
Eleventh-place driver Alex Albon was the fastest of the Williams pair with his teammate Nicholas Latifi, 14th. Mick Schumacher finished faster of the two Haas drivers, taking P12 after floor damage stunted his afternoon running – while teammate Nikita Mazepin finished 15th, having driven in the morning.
Every team bar Alfa Romeo and Haas completed a century of laps on the opening day.
Five drivers including Zhou Guanyu, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, and Sergio Perez are yet to take the wheel, with plenty of running remaining over the next two days.
