Hamilton, speaking before he drove in the afternoon session, was optimistic about his first pre-season test with his new team.

“I feel like we’ve built a really good foundation but these guys out there look really competitive, it looks very close,” he said.

“This is the most positive feeling I’ve had for a long time.”

But his day ended early when Ferrari curtailed his running prematurely, before he was able to complete a planned race distance.

Hamilton was nearly 0.5secs quicker than team-mate Charles Leclerc but was running a tyre compound one step softer. He also drove in the afternoon session while Leclerc went in the morning.

Pre-season testing is a notoriously unreliable indication of true competitiveness as there are so many factors that can distort the picture.

Teams do not reveal the specification in which they were running their cars, and fuel loads and engine modes have a major impact on performance.

In addition, the weather conditions on Friday were very different from the day before – Friday was sunny and considerably warmer, with a stronger wind, meaning the track was slower than it had been on Thursday.

Despite Verstappen’s pace, the Red Bull looked difficult to drive, and the team were trying out different set-ups and configurations on the car, including swapping between two different front wing specifications.

The four-time world champion had a spin late in the day at Turn One.