Formula One pre-season testing report: day five in Barcelona

Racing Post Sport will be rounding up the action on each of the eight days of F1 2019 pre-season testing at Barcelona as the countdown to the first race gets serious.

Day five highlights

It was a mixed day for McLaren rookie Lando Norris who set the fastest time of the day despite twice having to be recovered after mechanical failures on track. Norris leapt to the top of the times with a late blast on the softest (and therefore fastest) available tyre, shortly before the second of his stoppages.

Mercedes's Valtteri Bottas had a pretty much wasted day, completing just seven laps after an oil pressure problem necessitated a power-unit change. Lewis Hamilton completed 83 laps in the morning.

It was a similar story at Ferrari, where newboy Charles Leclerc was limited to 29 laps due to cooling issues.

Fastest lap times

1 L Norris (McLaren) 1.17.709
2 P Gasly (Red Bull) 1.17.715
3 L Stroll (Racing Point) 1.17.824
4 S Vettel (Ferrari) 1.17.925
5 A Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) 1.18.589
6 A Albon (Toro Rosso) 1.18.649
7 C Leclerc (Ferrari) 1.18.651
8 K Magnussen (Haas) 1.18.769
9 G Russell (Williams) 1.19.602
10 D Ricciardo (Renault) 1.20.107
11 V Bottas (Mercedes) 1.20.167
12 L Hamilton (Mercedes) 1.20.332
13 N Hulkenberg (Renault) 1.20.348

• The 2019 F1 field is unveiled - team profiles

Market moves

Mercedes continued to set mediocre laptimes and having also shown mechanical frailty, Lewis Hamilton has hit even money for the first time.

Sebastian Vettel is now no bigger than 5-2, in from 7-2 at the start of last week. His new Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc was edged out by some firms but remains an 11-2 chance for the title.

Latest title betting (best prices)

Evs Hamilton, 5-2 Vettel, 11-2 Leclerc, 8 Verstappen, 22 Bottas, 40 bar.

What we learned

The unseasonably warm weather means that, although the times don't tell the whole story, the data gathered by the teams this week will be much more useful to them than last year, when it barely got above freezing at times.

That also means any time lost due to reliability issues will be more costly, so Honda getting 239 laps on their engines on the day via Red Bull and Toro Rosso is good news for them.

Williams, after their disastrous start to preseason, will have been delighted with a trouble-free day for George Russell that saw the British rookie complete 119 laps.

Ferrari still look top dogs, proving nimble and fast on the straights, but it's worth remembering they have started the last two seasons strongly before falling behind in the development race later in the year.

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