Sainz fastest as Vettel crashes out - F1 testing morning round-up

Carlos Sainz set the fastest time of testing so far to put McLaren top of the times while Ferrari will have a rebuild job on their hands after Sebastian Vettel crashed out midway through the session.

The light went green for day six and a flurry of cars headed out immediately. Both Vettel and Valtteri Bottas set about their work eager to make up for lost time yesterday after both teams’ respective issues.

Max Verstappen wasted no time getting down to business, setting the initial 1:19.983s benchmark on the C3 medium compound tyre.

As the hour mark approached, improvements began coming in with Carlos Sainz carrying on from where McLaren left off yesterday, going fastest of all with a 1:18.878s.

Vettel quickly followed, narrowly missing out on the top spot by just 0.031s. Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat also added their names to the times going fourth and sixth fastest respectively.

Sainz continued to show strong pace in the car and improved his time to the fastest of winter testing so far, a 1:17.144s.

Bottas also improved to a 1:19.205s and went P4 but his time was set on the C2 hard tyres, a possible warning shot by Mercedes as to the true pace of their car,

Unfortunately for McLaren it was once again the MCL34 that brought out the red flags after Sainz came to a stop at the end of pit lane.

The action would continue in a stop-start nature for the next phase of the morning, Verstappen causing a red flag in an identical spot to Sainz.

Running got going once again but only briefly as Vettel crashed into the barriers at turn three in a strange accident. The driver was ok but the car would need repairing and a check over before it got going again.

The track was instantly busy after a lengthy delay due to barrier repairs. Robert Kubica lifted Williams from the bottom of the pile with a 1:21.684s to go ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.

New personal bests began rolling in with regularity as lunch edged ever closer, Kvyat, Perez, Bottas and Raikkonen all improving their times with under an hour remaining.

Sainz was able to improve his best time to lower the fastest time to a 1:17.144s as the lunch break approached. His time was also on the C3 medium compound tyres, an encouraging sign for McLaren.

Carlos Sainz - McLaren - 1:17.144s - 54

Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari - 1:18.195s - 40

Max Verstappen - Red Bull - 1:18.395s - 69

Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes - 1:18.941s - 71

Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso - 1:19.060 - 36

Kimi Raikkonen - Alfa Romeo Racing - 1:19.194s - 43

Sergio Perez - Racing Point - 1:19.207s - 29

Robert Kubica - Williams - 1:19.367s - 40

Romain Grosjean - Haas - 1:19.717s - 53

Daniel Ricciardo - Renault - 1:22.597s - 68