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

Five red flags punctuated a sto💎p-start morning session, with the first caused by a stoppage for Fernando Alonso early in the morning. 

Fire dama🎐ge from the problem that caused Alonso to stop on track has forced Alpine to end its day - and test - prematurely. 

A crash for Pierre Gasly at Turn 5 brought out the second red flag, before Alfa Romeo’s Gu🎃anyu 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 fifth and final red flag ended the 🎉morning session early after Sebꦆastian Vettel’s Aston Martin ground to a halt with a fire. 

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen ended up๊ 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 fr🧜action behind Vettel came Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth, with Nicholas Latifi rounding out the 🐼top five for Williams. 

McLaren’s Lando Norris was sixth, ahead of Alons💧o - 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 garage-bound for the rest of the session. 

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

The Barcelona circuit will be ꦚ💎artificially wetted 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.