Written by Rohan Brown, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
Day one of three testing outings for Formula One is now complete. Let’s recap what happened today on track.
Mercedes debutant Andrea Kimi Antonelli topped the morning timing charts, however was beaten by team mate George Russell.
The afternoon session was disturbed by a power outage at the Bahrain International Circuit. Once the session was finally back underway, only 50 minutes remained so the FIA decided to extend the session by an hour to make up for lost time.
Lando Norris topped the overall timing charts today, setting a lap time of 1.30.438 in the afternoon session. The McLaren driver was followed by fellow Brit Russell and Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen. The rest of the top 10 was filled out by Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Kimi Antonelli, Liam Lawson, Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda.
The bottom 10 was occupied by rookies Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto in 11th and 12th. They were followed by new Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton, taking part in his first official test session, whilst rookie Jack Doohan and Fernando Alonso followed in 14th and 15th.
The rest of the bottom five were Lance Stroll, Oscar Piastri and Nico Hülkenberg occupying 16th, 17th and 18th respectively - with both Haas drivers Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon at the bottom of the timesheets, running on different programmes than their fellow drivers.
On track testing ran as it usually does, drivers completing lap after lap. But there were a few notable moments, such as Liam Lawson’s half-spin (which he corrected, and swiftly continued his testing programme) and Lando Norris’s car being covered in a large amount of flo-vis (flow visualization) paint. Overall, the day was an interesting outlook into F1’s 75th season.
Day two of F1 pre-season testing begins tomorrow at 7 am United Kingdom time.
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