Spanish GP: Sebastian Vettel to miss second F1 free practice

The German stopped out on track after four laps during Friday morning's first practice session at Barcelona when he suffered an electrical problem.

After his car was returned to the pits, inspection uncovered the fact that a wiring loom had been damaged.

Due to the packaging complications of the current generation of cars, the loom cannot be replaced before second practice, meaning the reigning champion will be out of action until final free practice on Saturday morning.

A short statement from Red Bull said: "The team will use the time to fix it to be ready for FP3 tomorrow."

Red Bull had headed in to this weekend confident that the Barcelona layout and updates to both its car and Renault engine would lift its chances of challenging Mercedes for victory.

Team principal Christian Horner said: "It is a matter of closing the gap in the time that is obviously ticking by.

"Mercedes obviously hit the ground running and we have a lot of work to do to close that gap.

"The guys are working tremendously hard and there is a very strong exchange of information and everybody is very much focused on it."