Kevin Magnussen was fastest on the second day of the second test at the Bahrain International Circuit. Magnussen’s fastest time for Haas came after the flag dropped because delays in getting parts and the car to Bahrain means the team has been given two extra hours on Friday and Saturday to make up the loss of time on Thursday morning.
Throughout the day, the Danish driver explored the limits of his Haas, but as the sunset and the track, conditions shifted many of his colleagues too struggled with grip and used the desert circuit’s bountiful run-off areas.
Carlos Sainz was the fastest when the chequered flag dropped the Ferrari set a 33.532 which put him just under half a second faster than Red Bull’s Max Verstappen with the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll going fourth fastest.
Ferrari has been one of the most consistent performances across the five days of testing but going into qualifying next Saturday it is unknown how much teams have been sandbagging. Sainz set his fastest lap on the medium tyres under the floodlights half a second faster than Pierre Gasly’s pace on day one, while Verstappen and his 2021 title rival Lewis Hamilton moved up in the last hour.
The Dutchman went third fastest briefly before Hamilton went faster, Verstappen retook third using the C5 tyre going almost eight-hundredths of a second faster. In the closing moments of the afternoon, Verstappen moved up to third going seven hundredths faster than Aston Martin’s Stroll using the C4 tyres.
While as ever, fuel loads and engine settings are unknown outside each team’s garage in testing, so it’s possible that Verstappen’s time would have been in a similar ballpark had all things been equal, but it could also be the case that Sainz might have extended his lead, as shown by the impressive pace of Magnussen’s lap later in the evening.
Sainz however rejected the claims by George Russell that Ferrari looked in the best shape so far. He told BBC News, “It is typical Mercedes, typical George – hype up the others and then come to the first race and blow the competition away. If it was the first season they did it, I would maybe believe them, but they have done it for five, six years now and they keep surprising us in the first race.”
Mercedes may be starting to open the car with the upgrades, with Hamilton six tenths off the pace it’s highly likely given past performance in testing the German manufacturer will give a true representation on the final day. The car continued to be difficult to drive on track, as they continued to bounce up and down on the pit straight as the team experimented with ways of curing the porpoising issues it has suffered all week.
Esteban Ocon was unable to improve in the afternoon session, but the Alpine caused the first red flag. The Frenchman had to stop the car in the run-off area of the final sector bringing out the first red flag. Alpine stopped as a precautionary measure after it had spotted an anomaly on the data.
It appeared to be a second pre-season setback for Alpine, which was forced to end a troubled Barcelona test early after a fire, but Ocon soon managed to get back out to complete well over 100 laps on the day. Ocon going nine-hundredths of a second faster than the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who drove the mid-morning session.
Lando Norris was eighth fastest but the McLaren brought out the second red flag, when he stopped at the end of the pit lane. However, it appeared to be a minor issue in the grander theme of the teams difficult test, brake issues and awaiting revised parts from the UK limited running.
Norris was over a second faster than the Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel, the four-time champion having a minor stoppage on track during the morning.
Yuki Tsunoda completed the top ten putting his Alpha Tauri almost two tenths faster than Valtteri Bottas. The Alpha Tauri driver leading the way in terms of mileage. Bottas, Mick Schumacher and Russell all being bumped out of the top ten by drivers who did the afternoon session.
Bottas missed the race restart procedure test at the end, as he stopped on track as the cars lined up on grid for the start he stalled. Nicolas Latifi was fourteenth his day was very limited, under the midway sun the Williams brakes caught fire, ending the team’s day.
