McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr. set the quickest time of Formula 1 pre-season testing so far on a morning in which Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel suffered a mechanical-induced crash.
Sainz Jr., whose run was briefly interrupted by a loss of water pressure – McLaren’s third stoppage in as many sessions this week – posted a time of 1:17.144 on Pirelli’s C4 tyres at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
That gave Sainz Jr. an advantage of over a second to nearest rival Vettel, who encountered Ferrari’s first major setback of the pre-season period.
Vettel went off at the entry to Turn 3 and hit the barriers nose first, causing damage to the front-left of the SF90.
Vettel was able to extricate himself from the car and took a precautionary trip to the medical centre for a standard evaluation – and was soon released – while Ferrari swiftly confirmed that a mechanical failure was to blame for the off.
The exact cause of that mechanical failure has yet to be communicated by Ferrari.
The crash, which happened mid-way through the four-hour session, caused running to be halted for over half an hour while the SF90 was removed and barrier repairs undertaken.
Ferrari did not return to action across the remainder of the session; Charles Leclerc is scheduled to take the reins of the SF90 this afternoon, but Ferrari expects a delay to the start of his running.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen caused another red flag period – though that was only brief for his stoppage was at the pit exit – and he wound up third.
Valtteri Bottas resumed Mercedes’ running after Tuesday afternoon’s oil pressure problem and completed over a race distance worth of mileage aboard the W10, amassing 72 laps – the most of the 10 participants.
Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat was fifth, in front of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.
Robert Kubica carried out aero runs for a large portion of the morning before switching attention to quicker runs, placing eighth for Williams, in front of Haas’ Romain Grosjean
Daniel Ricciardo finished at the rear of the 10-team field for Renault as he ostensibly focused on long runs; his best time was 2.8s down on Grosjean’s fastest effort.
Running will resume at 14:00 local time.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 |  Carlos Sainz |
McLaren | 1:17.144 | 56 | |
| 2 |  Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari | 1:18.195 | 1.051 | 40 |
| 3 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | 1:18.395 | 1.251 | 69 |
| 4 |  Valtteri Bottas |
Mercedes | 1:18.941 | 1.797 | 75 |
| 5 |  Daniil Kvyat |
Toro Rosso | 1:19.060 | 1.916 | 36 |
| 6 | Kimi Raikkonen |
Alfa Romeo | 1:19.194 | 2.050 | 43 |
| 7 |  Sergio Perez |
Racing Point | 1:19.202 | 2.058 | 29 |
| 8 |  Romain Grosjean |
Haas | 1:19.717 | 2.573 | 42 |
| 9 |  Robert Kubica |
Williams | 1:19.991 | 2.847 | 57 |
| 10 |  Daniel Ricciardo |
Renault | 1:22.597 | 5.453 | 72 |
