Right, one hour down. Let's do a lap count. Where's my abacus?

Vandoorne 18  

Verstappen 12

Giovinazzi 11

Raikkonen 9

Hulkenberg 5

Grosjean 5

Kvyat 1

Hamilton 0 

Perez 0 

Sixty-one laps in an hour. Between nine cars.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Ferrari’s performance has certainly caught the eye so far in pre-season testing, with the car setting quick times and looking good out on track. Sebastian Vettel was just over 0.15secs off Valtteri Bottas’ Mercedes on Wednesday, despite the Finn using ultra-softs and Vettel the soft. 

That sounds like the Ferrari had a big advantage, but actually Bottas’s best lap of the day was probably an earlier one on softs. Apply the usual approximate corrections for fuel load on that and he was less than 0.1secs off Vettel. Still, a Ferrari and a Mercedes of equivalent pace would be something to watch this season. Whether it works out that way is another matter, of course.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton is revelling both in Mercedes’ reliability but also in the new, faster cars this year. “There is less degradation on the tyres,” he said. “It is literally the downforce, how late and deep you can brake, how quickly you can get on the gas, how you are able to take corners flat out pretty easily. Turn Nine, I am going out of it and I am like a kid on a rollercoaster ride because it is so much better than before. But it is worse to follow another car.” 

Not everyone agrees on that point - on Wednesday Nico Hulkenberg echoed Max Verstappen’s remarks of the previous day. “For one lap today I followed a Williams and was actually surprised,” he said. “I didn’t really lose too much downforce, I was able to follow him around quite OK. But that’s one lap so I wouldn’t take too many conclusions from that, but it felt OK in that moment.”

Times are coming down a bit now as the drivers soak up the rain on those greedy extreme-wet tyres. 

Four cars have set times: 

1. Verstappen (Red Bull) - 1:40.357

2. Raikkonen (Ferrari) - 1:40.803

3. Giovinazzi (Sauber) - 1:42.940

4. Vandoorne (McLaren) 1:43.402  

Grosjean and Hulkenberg have done one installation lap each. Hamilton, Perez and Sainz haven't even done that. 

Raikkonen's Ferrari is now top of the timesheets with a 1:41.598.

I hope all this is worthwhile for Pirelli because right now the action on track is not really buttering any parsnips.  

Right, when I call your name, say "here".

Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 

Antonio Giovinazzi (Sauber) 

Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren)

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 

Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)

Sergio Perez (Force India) 

Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso) 

Romain Grosjean (Haas)

Nico Hulkenberg (Renault)

Massa. 

Massa?

Has anyone seen Massa?

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

What happened to cause Lance Stroll's spin on Wednesday that has led to Williams cancelling today's test? Stroll himself was coy. "Unfortunately just a little thing at the end," he said. "A victim of a situation that happened on the end on the car, which just threw the car away from me. There was an issue on the car, I was a victim of the situation. We are still figuring it all out, so I don’t want to get into details about it." 

What could it have been? 

Williams engineering chief Rob Smedley was keen not to criticise the driver, but revealed it had been a mistake on cold tyres. “They are good to lean on them, but there is a certain point where they become very tricky," Smedley said. 

"Lance was out on cold tyres, on a cold medium tyre, on an out-lap with a lot of fuel in the car, and the tyre stepped away from him. He was an innocent victim of that happening and what should have been an innocuous sideways moment brought him around into the barrier and did some damage. That happens and we expect it to happen there is no blame on his part.”

Image source, Getty Images

Giovinazzi's Sauber also sets a time - a 1:46.415.  

Ah, the commentator's curse works a treat. 

Out come three cars, no less. We also have a second timed lap on the board - a 1:45.029 for Vandoorne's McLaren. 

I'm just going to put this out there...

The teams aren't exactly tripping over themselves to do laps on this wet track.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Lance Stroll described his near 100 laps of running on Wednesday as “a good day”. His team-mate Felipe Massa is unlikely to feel the same way, following Williams’ discovery of damage to the chassis caused by his crash late in the afternoon, which has forced the team to cancel the Brazilian's running on Thursday. 

That was the 18-year-old Canadian’s third off in two days, two of which did significant damage to the car. Stroll managed only 12 laps on Tuesday before losing control at Turn Nine and damaging the front wing, requiring parts to be flown back to the UK and a new one to be sent out from the factory. Stroll clearly has some talent - he is the European Formula Three champion, after all - but there is no secret that Williams have signed him largely because of the money he brings, owing to his billionaire father Lawrence Stroll, the founder of the Tommy Hilfiger brand among other things. 

The move has brought a lot of funds to the team - reputed to be more than £40m over 2016 and 2017 - but it brings risks, and this is a clear example of them. Like any rookie, Stroll needs time, as Lewis Hamilton pointed out. “I feel for him in the sense that it is the toughest year to come into F1, the fastest, most physical cars,” the three-time champion said. 

“And such short amount of testing - although I know he has been driving around the world with Williams so he has had more preparation time than any other driver coming in. It is to be expected. It is not an easy car to drive. So much precision in the corners. Last year’s car is easy compared to this. But these are only the first days and you cannot just jump in and drive it straight sway and be consistent and not spin.”

Image source, Getty Images

Red Bull's Max Verstappen was the first to don his water wings when the light turned green and is out there, as you would expect, having enormous fun it would seem. Four laps down for the Dutchman already, with a best of 1:41.706 - roughly 20 seconds off dry pace.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

The track will start wet today, after it was artificially dampened both last night after testing had finished and again this morning. 

The idea is to provide some testing for Pirelli’s new wet tyres. Racing director Mario Isola said he hoped the teams would get running on the ‘extreme’ and ‘intermediate’ tyres. But it is unclear how many will take it up. 

Lewis Hamilton, for one, did not sound at all keen, joking he might find he had pulled a muscle in the morning. 

Pirelli was trying to improve the wet tyres for this year after heavy criticism by drivers last year. But Sebastian Vettel’s crash at Fiorano a couple of weeks ago has not boosted confidence. Pirelli blamed a driver error. But sources close to Ferrari say he simply aquaplaned off - exactly the problem last year.

Before we get to the action, some news from Williams - and it ain't good.

Bolt on those wet tyres, chaps.