Sainz comfortably tops second day of Bahrain testing

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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

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Tyre	Laps
1	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1m33.532s	C4	60
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m34.232s	C4	86
3	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1m34.064s	C4	70
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m34.141s	C5	47
5	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	1m34.276s	C4	111
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1m34.366s	C3	54
7	Lando Norris	McLaren	1m34.609s	C3	60
8	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	1m36.020s	C3	46
9	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1m36.505s	C3	39
10	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	1m36.802s	C3	120
11	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	1m36.987s	C2	25
12	Mick Schumacher	Haas	1m37.846s	C2	23
13	George Russell	Mercedes	1m38.585s	C2	67
14	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	1m39.845s	C2	12
15	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	1m39.984s	C2	48

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.

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Michael Delaney