World champion Max Verstappen put Red Bull at the top of the times, less than three-hundredths of a second faster than Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin in the first day of testing in Bahrain.
Verstappen improved on his own best time from the earlier session to end the first of the three days of testing on top for Red Bull. Alonso was only 0.029s slower than Verstappen’s best time, while the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz Jnr and Charles Leclerc were both fourth tenths away from the world champion.
The earlier session saw Verstappen and Red Bull go quickest ahead of Sainz and Alexander Albon’s Williams. Verstappen was the only driver who drove both session: Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant all took over from their team mates for the second.
After an hour-long lunch break, the green light at the end of the pit lane signalled the start of the second four-and-a-quarter hours of running, but none of the ten teams were in a rush to take to the track.
Just before 15 minutes had passed, Verstappen became the first driver on circuit, soon joined by Norris, Hamilton, De Vries, Ocon, Leclerc and Sargeant. As drivers focused on getting familiar with their new cars, none of the afternoon drivers broke into the top ten on the timing screen in the early phase of the session.
After Aston Martin’s Felipe Drugovich was delayed in the early session with electrical problems, Alonso was reportedly held up with minor floor damage. However, after almost a full hour in the garage, Alonso was able to rejoin the circuit and continue to gain experience in the team’s new AMR23. Norris was also frustrated by a lack of running across the opening two hours, with his MCL60 receiving work from McLaren’s mechanics at the front of the car.
As temperatures began falling as the sun started to set, the times began to improve. Hamilton moved his Mercedes up to third with a 1’33.671, a quarter of a second slower than Sainz. Then, fastest driver Verstappen bolted on a new set of C3 tyres and improved on his own best time over the first two sectors to lower the best time with a 1’32.837.
With the floodlights illuminating the circuit, Alonso pumped in the fastest final sector of the day to jump up to second, just 0.029s slower than Verstappen’s overall best. Leclerc also improved to a 1’33.287, almost matching team mate Sainz’s best time of the early session. Norris moved to fifth for McLaren, while Hamilton put in the sixth fastest time to move ahead of Albon’s time from the early session.
There were no red flag stoppages or significant on-track problems for any of the ten drivers during the second half of the day’s running. Verstappen completed the most running of the day with 157 laps for Red Bull, with Mercedes covering 152 laps, Williams 149 and Alfa Romeo logging 138. McLaren covered the least distance over the day’s running, recording 92 laps which was nine fewer than Aston Martin.
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2023 F1 pre-season Bahrain test – Day one times
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