Aston Martin brought the penultimate day of Formula 1 testing at Barcelona to an early end on Thursday as a problem for Lance Stroll after just four laps left his new AMR26 stranded on track.
The team had worked all day to get its 2026 car out for the first time, with Stroll completing a first installation lap with an hour of running left.
But after later managing just four laps at slow pace, his car came to a halt in the final sector on his fifth tour and he stopped in the run-off area near the pitlane entry.
There was no immediate explanation for what caused the stoppage, but Aston Martin will be hoping it is a minor issue that can be resolved so it can get a full day’s running done on Friday.
While Stroll’s stoppage brought out the only red flag of the day, Aston Martin was not the first squad to hit trouble.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri found himself stranded in the garage for the afternoon session as his squad worked on finding a fix to a problem with its MCL40.
“Unfortunately a few issues today,” said Piastri afterwards.
“We had a fuel system issue which cut our day a bit short but I know the team is working really hard to get that fixed to get us back out for as many laps as we can tomorrow.”
The troubles for Aston Martin and McLaren were in contrast to the valuable mileage that both Mercedes and Ferrari managed over the course of the day.
Mercedes continued its impressive form, as George Russell set a new benchmark time for the week with a lap of 1m16.445s in the afternoon as his squad began to ramp up the pace of the W17.
That effort meant he edged out team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the top of the timesheets at the end of the day by 0.636 seconds.
With Piastri unable to improve from his morning effort and ending the day fourth in the standings, it was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who ended up the closest challenger to Mercedes.
Leclerc set a best lap of 1m18.223s as he completed 85 laps in total – adding to the 89 laps that team-mate Lewis Hamilton had managed in the morning on his way to sixth in the standings.
Arvid Lindblad was fifth fastest for Racing Bulls, with team-mate Liam Lawson ending up seventh.
The other car running was Sergio Perez in the Cadillac, who completed 66 laps with a best lap of 1m21.024s.
Mercedes has now completed the three days it is allowed to run, while a host of teams are planning to get their final day of running done on Friday.
This includes Red Bull, which has not been able to return to the track since Isack Hadjar crashed heavily at the final corner late on Tuesday.
Thursday times
1. George Russell (Mercedes) 1m16.445 (78 laps)
2. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m17.081s (90 laps)
3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m18.223s (89 laps)
4. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m18.419s (48 laps)
5. Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m18.451 (47 laps)
6. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m18.654s (83 laps)
7. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m18.840 (64 laps)
8. Sergio Perez (Cadillac): 1m21.024 (66 laps)
9. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m46.404 (4 laps)
