Zhou fastest from Verstappen as Mercedes hits trouble

After taking over from team-mate Sergio Perez for the afternoon session, Verstappen instantly lit up the timesheet in the Red Bull RB19 and carved his way to top spot with a 1m31.650s on the C3 tyres.

The reigning world champion, who also spent the entire opening day of the test driving for Red Bull on Thursday, was duly further ahead on his test programme as some rivals didn’t switch focus to performance running until the final hour of the day.

With 30 minutes…