Magnussen goes fastest during extra time in Bahrain!

Kevin Magnussen set the fastest time of the day on Friday evening in Bahrain during Haas' additional one-hour solo session, the F1 returnee presumably taking advantage of the cooler condition to beat Carlos Sainz's earlier benchmark time.

Haas was awarded the extra track time after the conclusion of Friday's session as compensation for the freight delay suffered earlier this week by the team.

Running onboard an F1 car for the first time in over 15 months, Magnussen made the most of the extra sixty minutes and the cooler track conditions.

• Steiner spoke with no other driver than Magnussen

The Dane tagged on 21 extra laps and recorded a 1m33.207s on C4 tyres – the same rubber as Sainz – that beat the Ferrari driver's best flyer by 0.325s!

Magnussen is therefore officially the fastest man in pre-season testing in Bahrain!

It's been a remarkable week for the 29-year-old who signed and sealed his multi-year contract with Haas as Nikita Mazepin's replacement on Wednesday, just 24 hours before the start of testing Bahrain.

Haas will also run an extra one hour tomorrow evening, at the end of the final day of testing in Bahrain.

"It was so good to be back in a Formula 1 car and so good to be back with the team – I think it went really well," commented K-Mag at the end of his first day back at the office.

"We had a good day of testing. I spent the first couple of runs getting back up to speed with a Formula 1 car but other than that it felt like I hadn’t been away. I could feel my neck at the end of it though – it kind of broke – but that’s expected.

"I’ll do another day tomorrow, break it even more, and then hopefully get in a little better shape for next week."

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