McLaren’s Lando Norris headed Mercedes’ George Russell on the finish of a Friday apply day that left loads of questions as to kind for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
Norris was 0.009 seconds faster than Russell, with the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri simply 0.057secs off the tempo.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third quickest, 0.373secs adrift of Norris, with runaway championship chief Kimi Antonelli fourth.
However the Italian had visitors on his qualifying simulation lap within the Mercedes, so his headline lap time is unrepresentative.
And though Antonelli seemed fast on his race-simulation runs later within the session, it was not attainable to make a direct comparability with Russell as they had been operating completely different tyre compounds.
