A Ferrari dominated the second day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain. Carlos Sainz was the fastest on Thursday in Sakhir, after his teammate Charles Leclerc set the pace in the morning session.
Unsurprisingly, the best times came in the evening period. Some teams have already started working on performance after collecting data with harder compounds. The Spanish Ferrari driver was on C4 tires (the second softest compound) when he clocked a time of 1m29.921s.
The closest was Sergio Pérez (Red Bull), who was 0.758s behind. Everyone else was at least over a second behind Sainz. The Mexican driver completed the most laps – 129 – and stayed in the cockpit in the afternoon contrary to what was planned in order to make up for lost time due to a morning breakdown. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) also ran the whole day, setting the third fastest time and completing 123 laps.
The top five was completed by Lando Norris (McLaren/Mercedes) and Daniel Ricciardo (Visa Cash App RB F1 Team) ahead of Leclerc – whose morning time allowed him to finish sixth. The Monegasque driver returned to the car in the afternoon to make up for lost time due to problems with a manhole cover in the morning.
The top ten fastest also included Lance Stroll (Aston Martin/Mercedes), Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Valtteri Bottas (Kick Sauber/Ferrari), and Oscar Piastri McLaren/Mercedes) – ahead of Logan Sargeant (Williams/Mercedes), who had some technical setbacks and also an incident at turn ten. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin/Mercedes) finished 12th.
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