Lunch update | Major problems for Alfa Romeo, red flag Red Bull and Perez

At 08:00, [Uk time] the lights went green and we saw many cars with aero rakes entering the Barcelona circuit. This tool is used to properly map and evaluate the aerodynamics of the car. Not everyone is rushed onto the asphalt, as Alfa Romeo, Haas F1 Red Bull Racing and Mercedes are took it easy.

Perez not very productive

The latter two racing teams seem to be on the same program and because of the use of the aero devices, not many miles were made in the first two hours. It was only towards the end of the morning that the counter starts to increase.

With just over half an hour left on the clock in the morning session, a red flag dropped. Sergio Perez falls silent at the end of Turn 13, with no damage to the RB18 visible at first glance. It's reported that it was a gearbox issue. Where Red Bull Racing had a flying start on Wednesday, things are clearly not going smoothly on Thursday.

Ferrari good, Alfa Romeo drama

Perez ended up not being in action in the morning and stranded on 38 laps. He is at the bottom of this ranking, because Ferrari, with Carlos Sainz behind the wheel, has already covered 71 laps. Behind them, it is Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly who were the most productive. Especially for Haas F1 this is a nice boost after a tedious first day of testing.

Meanwhile, the leak at Alfa Romeo Racing is still not over. Federic Vasseur's team didn't get further than 32 laps on Wednesday and after the first four hours of testing today only 20 laps have been added. So the problems at the Italian-Swiss formation do seem to be worrying.

Ricciardo the fastest

Ricciardo is the fastest of the bunch for now. However, the Australian is slower than teammate Norris was yesterday, so again the times say particularly little. Sainz is the runner-up by about two tenths. After that, it's Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon and Lance Stroll who managed to settle into the top-five.

Remarkably, although Ocon has many laps behind him, his fastest time is only a 1:23.280. That makes him almost three seconds slower than Ricciardo. This is certainly not to say that Alpine will have a bad car in 2022, but it is notable that the French formation thus seems to be working off a different schedule.

More spectacle in the afternoon?

There is expected to be more fast runs in the afternoon. For Friday rain is expected and moreover, there is a rain test in the afternoon. So if the teams want to do a fast run somewhere, it is today. Tomorrow is the last test day of the first Formula 1 test week.

On Thursday afternoon we will see no less than six new names at the start. George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Sebastian Vettel, Nikita Mazepin, Nicholas Latifi and Guanyu Zhou will relieve their teammates. Zhou will drive his first meters in the C42. Valtteri Bottas has already completed two parts of the day and the other part of the day was taken by reserve driver Robert Kubica.