Barcelona Morning 4: Albon tops as Mercedes crank it up

Yesterday, Daniil Kvyat surprised the establishment by powering to top of the timing screens late in the afternoon, his teammate Albon was not to be outdone this morning and was quickest when the lunch flag waved to end session.

The Thai driver set his best time with about half an hour remaining in the session, using the softest compound Pirelli C5 tyres as did Kvyat the previous day.

Albon's best time of 1:17.637 was a tenth faster than his teammate was yesterday, a tenth and a bit up on Daniel Ricciardo on the day

At that point, Renault's new driver had just topped the timing screens, after knocking Lewis Hamilton down to second place on the screens.

Nevertheless, Mercedes finally unleashed more of their power unit as they began to seek performance from the W10 which has more mileage on it than any other chassis running this week.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth on the timesheets in 1:18.046, but on a harder compound than Hamilton.

The Monegasque did the most laps, however — his 75 before lunch comparing to Hamilton’s 58. Frenchman Romain Grosjean did 64 in the Ferrari-powered Haas.

Poland’s Robert Kubica was also on track for Williams, who only started testing on Wednesday afternoon, and did 48 laps. He was still 10th and slowest, more than a second and a half off Canadian Lance Stroll for Racing Point.