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Formula 1

Barcelona F1 test two day one

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But the one-man band does his best to keep the modest smattering of fans in the grandstand (and us) happy by staying out and improving on that lap. The Renault's new best time is a 1m21.728s.
Magnussen has joined Hulkenberg on track and is on one of the harder compounds, which we weren't able to identify as it flashed past the pits for the first time.
Stroll and Albon have also headed back out.
It's a C2 tyre for Magnussen, who pops up into third with a 1m21.512s.
Stroll returns to the pits on what appeared to be a band-less C5 tyre.
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Albon heads onto a first flying lap on C5s, as Magnussen jump up into second on a 1m20.515s.
Albon's first lap on the board in this second test is a 1m24.392s. Magnussen, who's stalking the Toro Rosso down the straight, is faster again on that lap with a 1m20.358s.
Albon, who no longer has a Haas in his mirrors as Magnussen has dropped back, goes fifth on his next lap of 1m22.001s.
Gasly has returned to the track on C3s, while Hamilton takes the Mercedes back out on a set of C2s.
Hulkenberg is up to 14 laps on this run, incidentally. A good start to the day for Renault, which had difficult racking up laps at times last week.
Stopwatch
Gasly strings together new fastest times of all in the second and third sectors to improve his benchmark time to a 1m19.323s.
Hulkenberg brings the Renault back to the pits to halt what ended up being a 15-lap run.
New fastest first sector for Gasly now after a cool-down lap.
Stopwatch
And Gasly improves again, this time getting down to a 1m19.077s. That's less than three tenths shy of Red Bull-Honda's best lap of the first week already.
Hamilton improves to a 1m21.813s on his first flying lap of this stint.
We're enjoying Gasly's cool-down lap strategy at the moment as it's giving us some time to catch our breath.
Stopwatch
He's 0.018s slower than his sector one best on this latest hot lap, but sets a new session best in sector two and ticks off another fastest lap - improving marginally down to a 1m19.021s.
Gasly and Hamilton pit, leaving only Magnussen circulating. He's up to 15 laps so far this morning now.
We're three quarters of an hour into this first session and already we've got seven times on the board. Only Norris, Stroll and Russell - who hasn't seen the track since his out-lap at 9am - are yet to clock a timed lap.
Typical. Just as we say that, Russell heads back out in the Williams. Maybe we should see if our prompts works with other requests this week.
Russell will be the only car out on track, incidentally, as Magnussen has brought the Haas back to the garage after a 14-lap stint.
Russell has a set of C5 tyres bolted on for this run.
It's not a vintage first or second sector from the Williams, though, even if the timing screen is green.
Indeed, Russell cruises past the start/finish line and clocks a 1m49.849s. Plenty of work for Williams still to do as it makes up for the time it lost at the start of last week.
Russell comes straight back in on the next lap and returns to the Williams garage, and is replaced on-track by Hamilton - who has a set of the C3 tyres on.
Hulkenberg makes it an all-H affair for now by joining Hamilton on-track.
But Giovinazzi spoils that, attempting a practice start at the end of pitlane before taking to the circuit as Hulkenberg crosses the start/finish line.
Hulkenberg sets new personal bests of 1m21.106s then 1m20.886s, but stays fourth for the time being. The thinner white-banding on his tyres should indicate he's on the C1 tyre, but we're new to this.
Plenty more activity now. Stroll, Norris and Russell have headed out.
Information
That's just over an hour of the first day done! Time for a look at the order as things stand:

1 Gasly 1m19.021s
2 Magnussen 1m20.325s
3 Leclerc 1m20.830s
4 Hulkenberg 1m20.886s
5 Hamilton 1m21.813s
6 Albon 1m22.001s
7 Giovinazzi 1m23.531s
8 Russell 1m49.849s

You can also keep an eye on the times using the timing box to the right of our feed.
Giovinazzi sets a new best of 1m23.090s but stays seventh for now, while Stroll's first lap - which appears to be on unmarked tyres - is a 1m32.992s.
Stroll sets a new fastest first sector time of 22.294s on those unmarked tyres.
Norris completes the set - that's all 10 cars with laps on the board with just over an hour of the session gone. His first effort is a 1m22.485s.
Stroll can't quite better Gasly's effort - a 1m19.139s puts him second for the time being.
Scott Mitchell
Last week, the unmarked tyres were a development tyre Pirelli wanted to evaluate as the possible base for its 2020 compound.

However, this week the unmarked tyres are the more traditional validation test of rubber produced in Pirelli’s back-up factory.

Pirelli’s tyres are usually produced at its Romanian facility but it has another factory in Turkey.

This week, teams running unmarked tyres will simply be helping Pirelli validate that the compounds perform exactly the same. All unmarked tyres are the C3 compound.

By: Geoff Creighton

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