His team principal Adrian Newey has laid bare Honda’s problems in two extraordinary news conferences on consecutive days, on Friday explaining how the situation was affecting Alonso, and how their engine partner has found itself struggling so much.
Completing the top 10 was the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar and Haas’ Esteban Ocon, whose British team-mate Oliver Bearman was 11th.
The headline lap times may well not be a true reflection of outright pace as the top teams all did their laps at different times of the session – Mercedes running relatively early and Piastri late, when the track would have been faster.
On the race-simulation runs later in the session, Mercedes appeared to have a significant advantage over Ferrari, the only other top team to run on the same hard tyre.
However, Mercedes’ programme allowed them to do many more laps.
Red Bull and McLaren ran on the medium and soft tyres on their race runs.
Norris’ day was affected by gearbox problems that limited his running in the first session.
