Hamilton ends first test ahead of Vettel

Lewis Hamilton ended the first pre-season test with the fastest lap time as normality returned to Barcelona on Thursday. Stoffel Vandoorne joined Hamilton in dipping under one minute 20 seconds, while Pierre Gasly racked up a whopping 147 laps in the Toro Rosso.

After snow left teams short of track time on Wednesday, the Circuit de Catalunya was buzzing with activity a day later, as the grid looked to make up for lost time.

As the track dried out, Hamilton set a time of one minute 19.333 seconds on medium tyres, shaving two hundredths off the best time he managed in testing last year, set on ultrasofts.

Vandoorne had topped the timesheets for much of the day, having put in a 1:19.854 on the new hypersoft compound.

The Belgian's McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso was fifth-fastest, with Kevin Magnussen surprisingly getting the Haas between him and Sebastian Vettel. in third.

Times and lap counts from a very productive Thursday at @Circuitcat_eng

Almost the entire field got a feel for the conditions ????#F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/BFUSkd0j2Z — Formula 1 (@F1) March 1, 2018

Mercedes drove 129 laps between Hamilton and Bottas on Thursday, while McLaren managed 161, with memories of miserable testing of years past with Honda a thing of the past.

Honda power appears to be treating Toro Rosso much better, however.

Gasly's total was more than any driver managed on Thursday, and the team's technical director James Key faced media during the day, suggesting that Honda may catch up with Renault in terms of performance in the early months of the season.

"I don't know what Renault have done this year but we had a good feel for where the Renault was last year and at least from the numbers you see, which you always have to treat carefully, it's not so far off." he told Sky Sports.

"Not nearly as far as was being suggested last year actually. It was probably pretty close to Renault towards the end of the season. And obviously they've made steps for this year and that's encouraging."