Russell produced the new benchmark time of the opening pre-season test - a 1m19.233s - on Pirelli’s C5 ty🎉re amid a flurry of hot laps completed during the final hour of a disrupted penultimate session on Friday morning. 

Fiv✱e red flags punctuated a stop-start morning session, with the first caused by a stoppage for Fernando Alonso early in t✱he morning. 

Fire damage from the problem that caused Alonso to stop on track ha💃s forced Alpine to end its day - 🦹and test - prematurely. 

A crash for Pierre Gasly at Turn 5 broug𒐪ht out the second red flag, before Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou caused two red flags in a row with a spin at Turn༺ 10 and stoppage in the first sector just moments after the track had returned to green. 

A fift🦩h and final red flag ended the morning session ear🎐ly after Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin ground to a halt with a fire. 

Reigning w🔥orld champion Max Verstappen ended up five-tenths behind Russell but the Red Bull driver’s best time was set on the C4 compound, while Vettel had gone third-quickest after a C5 run prior to his stoppage. 

A fraction behind Vettel came Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth, with Nicholas Lat⛄ifi rounding🙈 out the top five for Williams. 

McLaren’s🌳 Lando Norris was sixth, ahead of Alonso - who only completed ♔12 laps before encountering his test-ending issue - Zhou, Gasly and Alex Albon, who split driving duties with Latifi in the morning. 

Haas driver Nikita Mazepin propped up the morning order after managing just nine laps before a leakage left him gar💖age-bound for 💟the rest of the session. 

As well as topping the timing sheets, Russell also log𒈔ged the most laps of🥀 the morning, clocking up 66 in total. 

The B🌄arcelona circuit will be artificially wetteღd so that Pirelli can conduct some wet tyre running to close out the opening pre-season test in Spain. 

Full results from the morning session.