Mercedes was fastest in both free practice sessions, using the P Zero Red soft C3 compound on each occasion. Valtteri Bottas set the fastest lap on the re-worked Barcelona track (with a new Turn 10) in the morning, while Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the day in the afternoon.

Alpine also performed strongly at Fernando Alonso’s home grand prix, finishing fourth and fifth in FP2 behind the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Conditions were warm and dry throughout the day, with temperatures around 25 degrees centigrade ambient and 40 degrees on track.

The drivers generally ran the P Zero White hard tyre and P Zero Red soft tyre in FP1 (with the exception of Ferrari, the only team to use the P Zero Yellow medium in the morning) before moving onto the medium and the soft in the afternoon to concentrate on qualifying and race simulations.

The performance gap between the compounds is as expected on this well-known track: around 0.8s between soft and medium, and 1.0s between medium and hard.

Mario Isola: "The tyres performed as we expected throughout free practice today with no graining or abrasion seen during each of the sessions and a performance gap between the compounds as anticipated. The surface here in Barcelona is very different to Portimao a week ago, with more abrasive asphalt that produces more grip. The new Turn 10 makes life a little bit easier for the tyres here, especially the rears, as it is more flowing than before. The teams concentrated on the soft and medium compounds in the afternoon, which are likely to be the key tyres for the race. This is due to the fact that there is a bigger performance gap to the hard, and also because there is less time lost in the pits than there was in Portugal, which encourages shorter stints."

Check out our Friday gallery from Barcelona, here.