The teams had enꦜjoyed uninterrupted running throughout the opening day of running and that was looking to continue until a stoppage for Perez disrupted the final hour of the morning session. 

Perez’s Red Bull ground to a halt at Turn 13 with a suspected gearbox issue and had to be recovered, resulting in a 20-minu𝔉te suspension to running. 

That prompted a busy end to the morning and Ricciardo wasted no time putting McLaren back to the top of the order after his teammate Lando Norris set the 💝pace on the opening day𝓀. 

Ricciardo pumped in a 1m20.355s on Pirelli’s📖 C3 compound to leapfrog Carlos Sainz, who had led the way for Ferrari for much ꩵof the opening four hours on Thursday and also logged the most laps with 71. 

Pierre Gasly was another driver who saved his best until late in theꦕ session, with the Frenchma🌱n ending up half a second down on Ricciardo’s benchmark in his AlphaTauri. 

Alex Albon produced Williams’ fastest lap of testing so far to sit fourth, four-tenths ahܫead of Aston Marꦦtin’s Lance Stroll. 

Sixth place went to Mick Schumacher, who completed 65 laps as Haas looks to make up for lostꦡ ground after🥀 floor damage hampered its running on Wednesday. 

Alfa Romeo’s lack of mileage continued on Thursday morning as Valtteri Bottas could only add 21 laps - the fewest of any team - to the Swiss outfit’s total from the first 😼day. 

Perez was eighth ahead of seven-ti꧂me world champion Lewis Hamilt💎on, who clocked 40 laps before handing over the W13 to new Mercedes teammate George Russell in the afternoon. 

Esteban Ocon rounded ou🎃t the morning order in 10th on his first outing for Alpine in Barcelona.