This year for the first time races may feature standing starts after safety car periods, with the cars all forming up on the grid once the safety car has been called in.

As part of the procedure, light panels around the track will display an 'SS' message, teams will be informed with a 'STANDING START' message via the official messaging system, and the orange lights on the safety car will be extinguished.

There is also an option for an ‘RS’ or ‘ROLLING START’ message, if conditions are not suitable for a grid start.

The FIA does not have its light panels in Spain, but today's test was mainly to check the FIA software, and ensure that drivers were receiving the correct messages on their dashboards.

Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Haas and Williams took the opportunity to participate.

There will be further tests at the end of track action on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

The test also provided the drivers involved with an opportunity to do a grid start on old and cold tyres, which will be the case in races this season.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen reported that he struggled for grip.

"This surface needs a lot of temperature," said the Haas driver. "The restart stuff we did at the end was impossible.

"We couldn't have done that in a race. I couldn't get my tyres to work at all – I could barely get going."

The tyre issue, and in particular the complication of potentially having cars with tyres of widely differing ages on the grid, was one of the key objections from teams when standing restarts were first mooted.