BAHRAIN GP – Fernando Alonso fastest by a tenth in second practice
Fernando Alonso was fastest in the second practice session ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Aston Martin driver set a 30.907 on the soft tyre which put him over a tenth and a half faster than the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. The Spaniard goes into the new season with a competitive car and being toted as the most improve team as it seeks to lead the midfield.
Alonso’s pace confirmed their status as frontrunners heading into the season-opening weekend, Aston Martin was flying in Alonso’s control, and the double world champion ended Friday’s running on top in the representative evening conditions. But he had to abandon a race run after locking up on the medium tyre.
Verstappen is looking like the favourite going into this season following testing and both his qualifying and race runs look to back up testing where Red Bull look to be in a league of their own. The Dutchman’s average race runs were a second a lap faster, on the soft tyre which looks to be the favourite tyre to start the race on Sunday.
On the race-simulation times later in the session, when teams run on heavy tanks to judge long-run pace, Verstappen was fastest, but again Alonso appeared competitive – running at the same pace as the Dutchman and quicker than Perez. But Verstappen complained on his soft run that his RB19 was “jumping around a lot more than in testing”
Charles Leclerc had gone second on his race runs, but the Ferrari driver didn’t look to have the pace at this stage to challenge at the front. The Monacan was four-tenths behind Alonso in fourth, but he spent over a quarter of the session fastest. As they fought for third, there was a close call at Turn Eight, Perez had to jink left and avoid Leclerc’s rear when coming across the Ferrari at the downhill hairpin.
Leclerc, however, looked the fastest on race pace, the caveat is that although the race runs are usually a better approximation of competitiveness than the one-lap pace, fuel loads are still uncertain to a degree. Despite four days of running before tomorrows qualifying and Sunday’s race the true picture won’t be clear till after this weekend.
Nico Hulkenberg put his Haas fifth fastest going eight hundredths faster than Lance Stroll. Stroll was having to adapt his driving style slightly because of his wrist injury, he was told to compromise Turn One by his team to get a better line into Turn Two, but he replied that he can’t because of his “hands”.
Stroll is racing this weekend with pins in a broken right wrist, following surgery after a bicycle crash last month.
Pierre Gasly was seventh seven hundredths ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. The seven time champion looking to struggle for grip in the extremely tight midfield, going a hundredth faster than the McLaren of Lando Norris with the Alfa Romeo of Guanyu Zhou rounding out the top ten.
Esteban Ocon was eleventh with the Frenchman splitting the Alfa Romeo’s he was nearly two-tenths faster than Valtteri Bottas. George Russell was thirteenth going three-quarters of a second nearly faster than Carlos Sainz. Russell asked Mercedes to check his floor after running wide over the kerbs exiting the fast, downhill right-left of Turns 6-7 and approaching the Turn 8 hairpin.
Sainz’s second qualifying run on the softs was pushed all the way down to fourteenth, with the Spaniard the first driver to finish beyond the one-second gap to Alonso. Oscar Piastri was fifteenth, seven hundredths behind the Ferrari but ahead of the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon.
Yuki Tsunoda was eighteenth going eight hundredths faster than his Alpha Tauri teammate Nyck de Vries. De Vries may face investigation for an unsafe release, after being released into the path of Lando Norris, Logan Sargeant rounded out the field.