F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Perez takes top spot for Red Bull on Sunday morning

Red Bull's new signing Sergio Perez topped the timesheets at the end of the Sunday morning session on the final day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Perez best time was 1:30.187s, with Charles Leclerc second quickest and McLaren's Lando Norris rounding out the top three.

The only other driver to dip below the 91-second mark so far today was AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly. Alpine's Estaban Ocon was fifth fastest ahead of Mick Schumacher, Valtteri Bottas, George Russell, Kimi Raikkonen and Lance Stroll.

Bahrain Pre-Season Test - Day 3 - Morning

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1:30.187	C4	49
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+0.299	C3	80
3	Lando Norris	McLaren	+0.474	C3	56
4	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	+0.641	C4	76
5	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	+1.123	C3	61
6	Mick Schumacher	Haas	+1.866	C3	78
7	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	+2.219	C2	86
8	George Russell	Williams	+2.544	C2	77
9	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo	+5.087	C2	91
10	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	+5.913	C3	80
11	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	-	-	-
12	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	-	-	-
13	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	-	-	-
14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	-	-	-
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	-	-	-
16	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	-	-	-
17	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	-	-	-
18	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	-	-	-

The morning session had been kicked off by Kimi Raikkonen, whose Alfa Romeo came out on track bedecked with an impressive plumage of aero-rakes. He was soon joined on track by Perez, Leclerc and Ocon, with George Russell also wasting no time getting his hands on the Williams FW43B for the first time.

Leclerc set the initial benchmark with a time of 1:32.959s.but this was soon bettered by Haas rookie Mick Schumacher posting a time of 1:32.803s. Leclerc responded by cutting more than two seconds off the top time with his next run to put Ferrari back on top just 20 minutes into the session.

After that the session continued largely without incident, although Russell took to the run-off as the result of a touch of oversteer at turn four just after the hour and a half mark, but with no lasting ill-effects.

Leclerc's time stood at the top of the timesheets until Perez put Red Bull at the top with a confident lap of !:30.309s just over halfway through the session. He subsequently improved on this, and by the end of the session he was a tenth quicker than the fastest lap set yesterday by Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas.

The Finn was himself enjoying a trouble-free run with a solid tally of 86 completed laps. Aston Martin were also having a better run after yesterday's gearbox issue with Stroll completing 80 laps, while Raikkonen notched up the most distance of anyone with 91 laps using the latest Ferrari engine upgrade.

The session ended five minutes early with a red flag in order for race officials to test systems and to allow teams to carry out practice starts before the lunch break.

Testing resumes at 12 noon GMT for the final four-hour session.

Daniel Ricciardo will take over from Lando Norris at McLaren, and Sebastian Vettel will be installed in the Ferrari. Also getting their chance at the wheel will be Nikita Mazepin, Fernando Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.