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          LIVE: Preseason testing, day five

          • ESPN
          Feb 20, 2020, 06:46 AM

          Formula One's preseason continues on Thursday with the second day of testing at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya.

          ESSENTIAL READING

          LIVE BLOG

          (All Central European Time)

          1500:

          Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes has come to a halt on the 13th lap of what looked like a race simulation. The car stopped between Turns 5 and 7 and needed to be taken back to the pits on a truck. Mercedes had already spent the early part of the afternoon in the garage working on the car.

          Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor4y ago

          That doesn't sound too healthy...

          1400: Gasly drives his Alpha Tauri out of the garage and down the pit-lane, signalling the start of the afternoon session. Four more hours of track time to come before the end of the penultimate day of this preseason.

          1300: That's lunch. Here's the times so far.

          11:35: Verstappen has beached it! He's in the gravel at the same spot Bottas went off a short while ago. He's not going anywhere so they're going to have to recover the car -- red flag.

          11:33: Valtteri Bottas has a little moment and runs wide at Turn 5. He keeps it away from the wall and goes on his merry way. No damage so no red flag.

          Replays show his car just snapping away from him as he approached the apex.

          11:20: Giovinazzi's car is back in the Alfa garage and the session is back underway.

          11:05: Red flag! Antonio Giovinazzi has spun out at Turn 4. For a moment it looked like he was beached in the gravel but he got the car going again -- but there's some damage to the back end. Replays show him spinning out across the gravel and making contact with the tyre barrier.

          10:40: Verstappen has a spin at the final sector, while his car is fitted with some huge aero rakes. He drives back across the circuit and into the pits. That little moment won't have helped Red Bull's data collecting -- that's the main purpose of running those fence-like designs on the cars.

          1000: Mercedes has been the busiest team so far today. There was a bit of rain this morning so the circuit started off quite damp, which caught a couple of drivers out. Esteban Ocon was one of them...

          0900: Hello and welcome to the penultimate day of preseason testing in Barcelona.

          Here's the run plan for today's session. Not as busy in terms of drivers as yesterday...