Ricciardo fastest in F1 Barcelona testing

Daniel Ricciardo was all smiles after setting the early pace on the second morning of Formula One pre-season testing.

Just as his British teammate Lando Norris had led the timesheets after the opening day, Australian Ricciardo followed up by being quickest in the new McLaren through the first session on Thursday.

Ferrari also impressed, with Carlos Sainz second fastest behind Ricciardo's best of 1min 20.355sec.

Ricciardo enjoyed mixed fortunes in his first season for McLaren, struggling behind Norris for much of the time but earning a tremendous victory in the Italian Grand Prix.

But he's been in buoyant mood after a refreshing break, and reckoned he's enjoying the challenge presented by F1's new generation of cars, introduced after major changes to technical regulations designed to make racing more competitive..

"The more years you do, the less excited you are to test and the more excited you are to go racing, but it's definitely the most excited I have been in a while to go winter testing," the 32-year-old Australian had said on Wednesday.

"The curiosity to see what direction teams have gone in and just visually, the cars look really cool."

After driving 65 laps on Thursday morning, Ricciardo was 0.191 sec quicker than Sainz, who was the busiest performer with 71 laps covered.

The session, however, had to be red-flagged with around 30 minutes to go when Sergio Perez's Red Bull stopped on track.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly was third fastest, two-tenths behind Sainz.

Lewis Hamilton didn't return to the track after Perez's red flag and finished ninth for Mercedes.