We've got a few more times up on the timing screen.

Jenson Button is out with soft tyres on his McLaren and has joined the party with 1:25.960 - the third fastest time.

He is behind Daniel Ricciardo (1:25.858 on mediums) and Lewis Hamilton, who has improved with 1:24.640.

Lewis Hamilton's strong words on the subject feels like a good subject for us to play with this morning. 

What is the #worsteverF1mod, external you can remember seeing? The Ligier JS 5 comes to mind. I can't find an exact picture but imagine this...

Image source, Getty Images

...with this and you are nearly there.

Image source, Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel has gone out this morning for another test with the “halo” head protection device that his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen ran briefly on Thursday. 

These devices are to be introduced in 2017 on the grounds of increased safety, following a number of fatalities and bad injuries from head impacts in motorsport recent years. But the halo is causing a lot of controversy. The majority of the drivers - and indeed the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association - are in favour, a view expressed by Nico Rosberg on Thursday, when he said it was a “massive safety improvement; it will look OK too eventually. I’m all for it.” But a few are not. 

Lewis Hamilton said on Instagram:, external “Please no! This is the worst looking mod in Formula 1 history. I appreciate the quest for safety but this is Formula 1, and the way it is now is perfectly fine.” 

And Nico Hulkenberg said: “It sends the wrong message. You can’t sterilise the sport. there needs to be an element of danger. in the last 20 years we have done a lot more and you see the accidents we’ve been having and you walk away without a scratch. I feel pretty safe.”  

Oh hi Lewis.

The Mercedes is back out on track and Lewis Hamilton immediately storms to the top of the timesheet with 1:25.347, also on mediums.

Felipe Massa has also got on board with a couple of timed laps, and he goes fastest of all with 127.170. That was set on the medium tyres.

It appears Mercedes are THAT confident about the year ahead that they are packing up already...

Thanks Joanna! It is not often I get told I have witty banter.

In fact it is not often I get called witty.

Usually it's just twit...

Marcus Ericsson is the man to get us up and running this morning in terms of timed laps -a 1:32.748 on softs.

Romain Grosjean, medium tyres on his Haas, is also on a flying lap...and he goes even quicker with 1:27.252.

A few have been asking why Barcelona? Why not go testing in the UK?

This is probably why...

Image source, BB

No times on the board yet, with everyone back in the pits after an install lap. 

The only car yet to appear is the Manor, which unfortunately won't be getting out any time soon...

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

The Haas team are beginning to discover this week just what a task they have taken on by entering Formula 1. They have as much help as any team, thanks to their close links with Ferrari, but after a solid first week, this week has turned into a bit of a nightmare. Engine problems blighted their first two days and on Thursday Romain Grosjean had no less than three offs - the first two caused by problems with the brake-by-wire software and the final one because he hit the kerb so hard the engine stopped.

Team principal Gunther Steiner said: "It's been a tough day. We are working a lot on the brake-by-wire system. It was difficult for him to drive and that's why he went off; it was all related to that development. It's Ferrari's system but we need to develop it to our needs. We cannot use their data to develop it. It's not a hardware issue. It's just an electronic issue."

Grosjean said: “The car is going a bit quicker this week and we are finding more issues on that system. I think it will be solved by Melbourne. Hopefully for tomorrow we have the fix. We really need to get on top of things because that is hurting us in term so preparation, performance and setting up the car but we're on it."

Haas are mixing things up today, just like Mercedes.

However, unlike Mercedes, they won't be swapping the drivers around because they are doing too many laps...

BBC Radio 5 Live

Looking for something to keep you entertained on your morning commute to work? I can think of nothing better than BBC Radio 5 live's F1 preview podcast, which you can listen to here. 

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

So, those lap times. Yes, Kimi Raikkonen has now set the fastest absolute lap time of the winter. But there are so many variables - tyre compound, fuel load, engine setting, track conditions and so on. 

It’s not possible to know all of them, so any attempt to ‘correct’ the lap time is inherently flawed. But you can adjust for tyre differences and you can take the fuel-weight effect out to a degree by looking at how long the stint was, and therefore what the minimum fuel load must have been (there may have been more in the car, but you know it must have had at least enough to do the mileage). 

This means that the absolute fastest laps at a test are not necessarily the ones that appear to have been done in close to qualifying trim. 

Anyway, play around with all that and the fastest time of this test so far seems actually to have been one Nico Rosberg did on mediums on Thursday, which corrects to 0.3secs quicker than Raikkonen’s best lap. Which is actually the one the Finn did on soft tyres on Thursday. Which was pretty much the same in absolute lap time as the one he did on super-softs and only 0.3secs down on his headline time.

The bottom line is that if those numbers are correct, Ferrari do appear to have closed the gap - by about half. And that could be enough to make a championship fight.

I would imagine Sebastian Vettel will have the halo device for one lap this morning before cracking on with Ferrari's testing programme after that, like Kimi Raikkonen did yesterday.

Speaking of Kimi, he had the fastest time yesterday, he set the fastest time so far in Barcelona with 1:22.785. Will anyone top that today? 

It is busy on the track with 10 cars out already.