BAHRAIN TEST ONE – Kimi Antonelli leads Mercedes one-two by a quarter of a second on final day
Kimi Antonelli led a Mercedes one-two on the final day of the first Bahrain Test; the Italian set a 33.669 to put himself nearly a quarter of a second faster than his teammate George Russell. However, Antonelli’s fastest time came in the final hour of the day when conditions were at their best.
Antonelli drove the afternoon session and went fastest with the best time of the test, despite the team’s best efforts to play down their status as favourites. A perfect response following an underwhelming day on Thursday, given that a power unit issue ruled out Antonelli for much of the morning running.
Mercedes had nearly a three-tenths advantage over Hamilton as the Ferrari driver was nearly three tenths behind his former teammate. Mercedes is beginning to back up their status as favourites as the halfway point in testing in Sakhir, all of the top ten set their fastest time on the harder of the medium tyres.
Hamilton drove the whole day, and in the hour which was broadcast, the seven-time champion shifted to longer running before he stopped on track after clocking a hundred and thirty-eight laps. Ferrari has not yet confirmed whether the car suffered a reliability glitch or it was simply a precautionary stoppage.
Oscar Piastri was the last driver to lap within a second of Antonelli; he was nearly three and a half tenths behind. There then appeared to be a sizeable gap to the Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who was fifth, eight-tenths nearly behind the McLaren, as he went just over three and a half tenths faster than teammate Isack Hadjar.
Verstappen, however, has launched a brutal attack on these new cars, describing it as “Formula E on steroids,” prompting an invitation to visit Jeddah for this weekend’s third and fourth rounds.
Red Bull themselves have continued to point to bookmakers’ title favourites Mercedes as having the best package so far, while both Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris have talked up Ferrari’s pace as Leclerc showed an eye-catching afternoon long run on Thursday.
Although the lap times aren’t the most important thing to look at during this stage of testing, a second test where the overall headline bearing glitches have been reliability of the new cars.
The two Red Bulls were nearly a tenth faster than the Haas of Esteban Ocon, who was just over half a tenth faster than Franco Colapinto, with his teammate Ollie Bearman ninth, three tenths faster than the Audi of Nico Hulkenberg.
Colapinto had a whole day running, completing over two race distances, but there was a bizarre moment right at the end of the session when the field lined up for practice starts on the pit straight under planned red flags, the Argentine almost crashing into the barriers as he attempted to line up in a grid box.
Alex Albon missed out on the top ten by half a second; he appeared to be one of the drivers struggling with braking as he locked up.
Haas did, though, cap an impressive second test with their VF-26 car by setting Friday’s seventh and ninth quickest laps with Ocon and Bearman, respectively. Bearman clocked seventy laps in the car in the morning before Ocon added sixty-nine in the afternoon, over two race distances.
The Racing Bull of Liam Lawson split the two Williams, the Kiwi a hundredth and a half behind Albon as he went nearly four tenths faster. Gabriel Bortoletto was fifteen over half a second faster than Lance Stroll, who claimed on Thursday that Aston Martin are around four-and-a-half seconds off the pace as things stand. Valtteri Bottas completed the field.
Williams (139 laps), Racing Bulls (113 laps), and Audi (109 laps) also racked up Friday centuries, while Cadillac fell just one lap short on 99 after losing some time in the morning when Bottas caused a red flag by stopping on track. But Cadillac were able to rectify the issue and send him back out before teammate Perez took over for the afternoon and got more than a race distance under his belt.
Testing resumes on day four in Bahrain on Wednesday for the second official three-day test before the opening race in Melbourne.