BAHRAIN GP – Carlos Sainz fastest by under a tenth and a half from Fernando Alonso in third practice
Carlos Sainz was fastest in third practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set a 30.824 going just under a tenth and a half ahead of his fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso. Although the session wasn’t reprehensive of qualifying the times back up the feelings of many of an extremely tight qualifying.
Alonso was just under a tenth faster than the current champion Max Verstappen, the favourite for pole once the teams go into the first meaningful session of the year to set the grid for Saturday’s Grand Prix. The fastest times came in the final ten minutes of the session.
Track temperatures of 34 degrees at the start of the session proved relatively undesirable, thus producing a six-minute wait before any track action took place; Lewis Hamilton broke the deadlock to gather some mileage for Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari fourth a quarter of a second faster than Lando Norris, as George Russell split the two McLarens seven-tenths behind and ahead of Oscar Piastri by two hundredths. However on his best lap, Norris dropped time in the final sector after setting the best middle sector
There remains plenty of intrigue with the top ten covered by just over half a second and a second covering the remaining ten, going into the first meaningful session of the year. However, the session was held in daylight and the track temperature was much higher than it will be for qualifying and the race, which is held at night in Sakhir.
It seems there will be a big fight for pole position in the first qualifying of 2024 and Red Bull are going to be challenged by several times including Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren.
Sergio Perez was eighth fastest three hundredths faster than Nico Hulkenberg with Lance Stroll completing the top ten. The Canadian was half a tenth faster than the RB of Daniel Ricciardo, who was only three thousandths faster than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.
The seven-time champion splitting the two RB’s, with one of the bigger margins nearly two-tenths faster than Yuki Tsunoda. It seems there will be a big fight for pole position in the first qualifying of 2024 and Red Bull are going to be challenged several times including Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren.
Kevin Magnussen was the last driver within a second of Sainz, as he went four hundredths behind the Japanese driver. Alex Albon was fifteenth ahead of both Sauber’s with Guanyu Zhou a tenth ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Alpine faces a difficult start to the season, which they expected Esteban Ocon eighteenth ahead of Logan Sargeant’s Williams and teammate Pierre Gasly.