Ricciardo ends opening day of Barcelona testing on top

Cool temperatures and a late rain shower made for a relatively uneventful afternoon at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with the top four remaining unchanged from the morning.

This meant Ricciardo ended the day on top by 0.178 seconds ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes, both using medium tyres, with Kimi Raikkonen third for Ferrari on softs.

Nico Hulkenberg completed a top four split by less than four tenths in the Renault, also using mediums in the morning before handing over to Carlos Sainz for the afternoon.

Ricciardo put Red Bull on top of the lapcount as well as the timesheets, becoming the only driver to breach triple figures with 105 laps complete – although Hulkenberg and Sainz did manage 99 between them for Renault.

After losing three hours of running in the morning, Fernando Alonso recovered to fifth place in the afternoon, managing a best time 1.160s off the pace on supersofts.

The Spaniard managed 41 laps in the afternoon, bringing his tally to the day up to 51.

Sainz was fastest of those whose running was restricted to the afternoon, placing sixth ahead of reigning champion Lewis Hamilton, who clocked 25 laps after taking over driving duties from Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Brendon Hartley and Lance Stroll remained eighth- and ninth-fastest on the strength of their times from the morning, while Haas man Romain Grosjean made a modest improvement in the afternoon but remained 10th-fastest ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson.

Nikita Mazepin did not run at all in the afternoon after his spin in the morning in the new Force India, ending up 12th.

Propping up the timesheets was Williams rookie Sergey Sirotkin, who took over from teammate Stroll in the afternoon but didn’t set a representative time.

UPDATE: Alonso had his best time of the day deleted for cutting the track. It means his best time was a 1m22.354s, set on supersofts, dropping the McLaren driver from fifth to seventh.

Amended Day 1 results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:20.179		102
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:20.349	+0.170	58
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:20.506	+0.327	80
4	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:20.547	+0.368	73
5	Carlos Sainz	Renault	1:22.168	+1.989	26
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:22.327	+2.148	25
7	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:22.354	+2.175	48
8	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1:22.371	+2.192	93
9	Lance Stroll	Williams	1:22.452	+2.273	46
10	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:23.092	+2.913	55
11	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:24.897	+4.718	63
12	Nikita Mazepin	Force India	1:25.628	+5.449	22
13	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams	1:44.148	+23.969	27