Lando Norris set the fastest time so far of pre-season testing in Bahrain early on Thursday morning, but all eyes were on an intriguing wing design trialled by Lewis Hamilton.

Norris had quickly got down to business with a run on the C4 compound, producing a lap of 1m33.453s – which was six thousandths of a second quicker than George Russell had managed on Wednesday.

But while the top teams continued their preparations, with Max Verstappen and George Russell just behind Norris on the time sheets, the intrigue in the pit lane was on another fascinating design idea that appeared on the Ferrari.

Just one day after the new SF-26 appeared with a unique exhaust wing, Ferrari showed another innovation - a radical active aero solution.

During some initial laps that Hamilton did on track, his rear wing was spotted flipping totally upside down when it went into straight mode.

The idea behind it will be to dramatically reduce drag on the straights compared to rival designs that typically open up to widen the slot gap.

But despite the buzz caused by the new rear wing, the morning did not pan out ideally as Hamilton was confined to the garage after completing just five laps in the opening 90 minutes.

Williams driver Alex Albon was fourth-fastest for Williams after the opening hour, ahead of Ollie Bearman in the Haas and Franco Colapinto in the Alpine.

Cadillac has had another slow start to the day, with Valtteri Bottas only completing two installation laps early on.