Sainz comfortably tops second day of Bahrain testing

Carlos Sainz set a new benchmark time on the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain, the Ferrari charger concluding the day 0.7s clear of the field.

While four drivers – Sainz, Max Verstappen, Lance Stroll and Lewis Hamilton – beat Esteban Ocon's fastest morning lap, the Spaniard was the only driver to dip into the 1m33s bracket.

All drivers in the top three relied on Pirelli's C4 soft rubber to achieve their best lap.

Bahrain Pre-Season Test - Day 2

Sainz took command of the session at it entered its third hour with a succession of flyers and was never caught.

In the final hour of Friday's running, Sainz and Verstappen indulged in a close scrap, the pair sticking it out during a few corners. The little battle appeared to validate the assumption that drivers can indeed follow each other more closely under F1's new regs.

While an impressive Stroll held second for the majority of the afternoon, the Canadian was ultimately overhauled by Verstappen, but the Dutchman could not approach Sainz's benchmark time.

Behind the top three, Hamilton upped the pace for Mercedes relative to George Russell, the seven-time world champion exploiting the C5 tyre to slot himself among the top four. However, porpoising issues and understeer clearly remained ever-present at Mercedes.

Ocon's morning best yielded a fifth overall in the running order, with the Frenchman putting a grand total of 111 laps under his belt. The Alpine driver triggered the first red flag of the afternoon however which his team put down to a "minor glitch".

Charles Leclerc was positioned sixth, one spot ahead of Lando Norris who got a decent number of laps in during the session, but long runs remained off the table for the Briton as McLaren had yet to get on top of its brake issues.

Norris also encountered a mechanical issue that brought out a second red flag just before the session entered its final hour, with the papaya car stopping at the end of the pitlane and then retrieved by McLaren's crews.

Behind Vettel in P8, Kevin Magnussen got straight down to business for Haas, the Dane putting 39 laps on the board and performing among the top ten.

Due to its freight delay earlier this week, the US outfit has been awarded an extra hour of track time this evening that Magnussen, running on his own, will put to good use.

AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda rounded off the top ten but was the days marathon man, with 120 laps of Sakhir to his credit.

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