After Max Verstappen dominated yesterday, Charles Leclerc is leading the second day of Formula 1 testing in Sakhir after the morning session. The Monegasque driver was the second fastest with a time of 1m31s since the beginning of these tests.
With medium tires on his Ferrari, Leclerc completed the best of the 36 laps he completed in 1m31.750s, finishing 0.578s ahead of Oscar Piastri (McLaren/Mercedes). At a certain point in the session, car #16 ran over a manhole cover while approaching turn 11, causing debris on the track and requiring red flags to be shown.
An inspection of the track was necessary, and after a delay of about 40 minutes, it was decided to end the morning session one hour earlier – compensating with an extra hour in the afternoon/evening.
Logan Sargeant (Williams/Mercedes) was third and the last driver within the same second as Leclerc, while Sergio Pérez made his debut with Red Bull with the fourth fastest time. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin/Mercedes) closed the top five ahead of Lewis Hamilton – thus starting his final pre-season with Mercedes. Also running in the morning were Guanyu Zhou (Kick Sauber/Ferrari), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Nico Hülkenberg (Haas/Ferrari), and Yuki Tsunoda (Visa Cash App RB F1 Team), occupying the positions from seventh to tenth, respectively.
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