Mercedes driver George Russell has set a new fastest time of testing so far at Barcelona in the first half of Wednesday’s running.
Russell’s 1m17.580s eclipsed the Monday benchmark by Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar by 0.6s as Mercedes began another extremely productive day on-track.
After racking up nearly 100 laps in just half a day on Monday, when he took over from team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the morning, Russell is understood to have come close to 100 laps again on Wednesday.
This was achieved through various long runs and was significantly more than anybody else before lunch.
Antonelli will be back in the W17 for the second half of Wednesday’s running.
Find out who's running when at Barcelona
Russell’s best time was 1.6s quicker than Franco Colapinto managed in the Mercedes-powered Alpine in the first half of the day.
Lando Norris and McLaren had a solid start with the MCL40, which broke cover just under a couple of hours into the day and has already managed more than 30 laps.
Arvid Lindblad, in his Racing Bulls car with a Red Bull-Ford engine, had the second-best lap tally of the day behind Russell at 61.
Stoppages have limited the track time for two teams so far. Audi hasn’t set a time at all since Nico Hulkenberg ground to a halt with just a few installation laps on the board, while Ollie Bearman and Haas had their day interrupted after around 20 laps.
Laptimes midway through Day 3
1 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m17.580s
2 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) 1m19.150s
3 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m19.672s
4 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m20.714s
5 Ollie Bearman (Haas) 1m20.840s
6 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) No time
