Ahead of today's sole practice session the air temperature is 29 degrees C, while the track temperature is 43 degrees. As was the case yesterday, it is hot.
Thus far, the technical directive aimed at settling the flexing issue once and for all does not appear to have any immediate effect on the pecking order, even though it was thought it might.
Piastri set a blistering pace in FP2 yesterday, but Russell, Verstappen, Leclerc and Norris were in hot pursuit.
Also looking good were Gasly, the RB pair and local hero Alonso, while Williams admit that they expected it to be tough here.
We saw the teams work with all three compounds and all drivers used at least one set of hards, keeping back just one set for the race. The performance difference between the compounds seems to be in line with expectations, somewhere around nine tenths to a second between the hard and medium and six to seven tenths between the medium and soft.
The lights go green and Colapinto heads out on fresh mediums. As he begins his first flying lap he is joined by Bortoleto and Stroll, both also on fresh mediums.
Colapinto posts a benchmark 15.804 as the crowd cheers Alonso as he heads into Turn 1.
As is custom, both Aston Martin drivers are merely scrubbing a set of mediums, and head back into the pits.
Bortoleto stops the clock at 15.224, as Colapinto improves to 15.374 but remains second (of two).
Fifteen minutes in and we finally get some action as Ocon, Gasly, Hulkenberg, Norris and Tsunoda head down the pitlane.
Ocon crosses the line at 14.966, but Tsunoda responds with a 14.851.
As Norris begins his first flyer, Sainz and Lawson head out.
Norris posts a 14.540 to go top but this is eclipsed by Sainz who posts a 14.124.
Leclerc posts a 13.941 as teammate Hamilton goes second with a 14.062 and Piastri seventh (14.487).
Norris improves to 13.869 as Verstappen goes fifth (14.234)
Russell raises the bar with a 13.396.
Russell is on softs, Norris mediums, Leclerc softs, Hamilton mediums, Sainz softs and Verstappen mediums.
Behind these it's Alonso, Albon, Hadjar, Stroll, Piastri and Hulkenberg.
Piastri complains of something odd against his left leg in his seat, bringing to mind an old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch.
Verstappen improves with a 14.116 but remains fifth.
On fresh softs Antonelli makes it a Mercedes 1-2 as he crosses the line at 13.825.
Despite a PB in S3, Tsunoda fails to improve on 15th.
Alonso goes sixth with 14.114 as Lawson pits after running wide in the final complex.
Currently twelfth, Piastri heads out again. He fails to improve.
Bearman aborts after running wide in Turn 12.
With twenty minutes remaining there are just a couple of drivers on track as we await the qualifying sims.
Antonelli is first out, using the same softs he ran earlier. No improvement in the first two sectors before running wide in Turn 12.
On fresh softs Verstappen goes quickest in S1. He maintains a strong pace in S2, finally crossing the line at 13.375, 0.021s up on Russell.
Having gone quickest in S1, Norris gets a snap of oversteer in Turn 9 and he aborts.
Quickest in the final two sectors, Alonso crosses the line at 13.414 to go third. Teammate Stroll improves to eighth.
Ocon goes eleventh, splitting the Williams pair.
As he heads back to the pits the crowd cheers Alonso.
Bortoleto goes fourth and Hulkenberg fifth as Piastri begins a flyer on fresh softs.
As he goes quickest in S1, his teammate goes purple in S2. Norris crosses the line at 12.913, as Piastri responds with a staggering 12.387.
In no time at all the gap between the McLarens, especially Piastri, and the rest, has increased massively.
Leclerc goes third with a 13.130 as Hadjar improve to fifth (13.382).
Antonelli is having a rear wing change.
Hamilton improves to eighth with a 13.527, but remains 0.4s off his teammate's pace.
With that new wing, Antonelli improves to seventh with a 13.405, while Russell goes fourth with a 13.139.
Despite pushing to the limit, and then some, Sainz can only manage thirteenth (13.758).
As the clock ticks down, Verstappen heads out again, on used softs.
It's not even a PB in S1 for the Dutchman, or in S2, hence there's no surprise when he fails to improve at the line.
As the session ends, all bar Albon are on track, the Thai suffering an unspecified issue.
A very late improvement sees Hadjar go sixth with a 13.382 as Hamilton complains that he can't downshift.
Piastri is quickest - and how - ahead of Norris, Leclerc, Russell, Verstappen, Hadjar, Antonelli, Alonso and Hamilton.
Lawson is eleventh, ahead of Bortoleto, Hulkenberg, Sainz, Tsunoda, Stroll, Gasly, Colapinto, Ocon, Albon and Bearman.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Barcelona here.
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