BERLIN – World champion Lewis Hamilton had to curtail Thursday's pre-season Formula One training when his Mercedes broke down after 14 laps.
The break-down brought out the red flag in the afternoon session at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, with the team saying there was an oil pressure problem.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/LewisHamilton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LewisHamiltonstopped on track due to an oil pressure anomaly, which made the engine shut down as a precautionary measure.
We will keep investigating further but unfortunately that concludes our running for the day #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/sOeumgFjTq
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1)
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel posted the fastest time in a morning session which saw spins by Vettel, Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Antonio Giovinazzi in an Alfa Romeo.
Vettel's time of 1 minute 16.841 seconds proved to be the fastest of the day and the third-fastest of testing so far, and was the first time Ferrari have topped a session at this year's testing.
Pierre Gasly in an AlphaTauri and Lance Stroll in a Racing Point were next on the timesheets.
The second and final round of tests is running until Friday while the season starts on March 15 in Australia.