Bahrain testing: Sainz puts Ferrari on top mid-day

Carlos Sainz put Ferrari at the top of the timesheet on Friday morning following another trouble-free session in Bahrain in which the Spaniard outpaced Williams' Logan Sargeant and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.

After yesterday's opening day of running, teams resumed their workload with the aim of digging in deeper into set-up work and unlocking the pace of their contenders.

Once again, save for a few teething issues suffered by a few teams, solid reliability coupled with everyone behaving on track produced an uneventful session.

Bahrain Pre-Season Test - Day 2

Ferrari's Sainz validated the Scuderia's overnight progress by lowering the benchmark time set by Red Bull's Max Verstappen on Thursday by 0.351s while logging in 70 laps.

The Spaniard's 1m32.486s best lap edged the Williams of Logan Sargeant by just 0.063s.

The young American, who had been delayed earlier in the morning by a brake issue, slotted into the runner-up spot in the closing stages of the session following a strong effort on the soft tyre.

Sargeant achieved the second biggest lap count with 70 laps around Bahrain's Sakhir circuit.

Fernando Alonso, the sole Aston Martin driver on Friday, upheld his testing from, the two-time world champion concluding his morning P3 with 64 laps under his belt.

Alfa Romeo's Zhou Gunayu also delivered a productive second day of running for the Swiss outfit, the Chinese driver setting the four fastest lap of the morning.

Kevin Magnussen unlocked more pace from Haas' VF-23, the Dane clocking in P5, just ahead of Alpine's Esteban Ocon.

Friday was Sergio Perez's turn to drive Red Bull's RB19 challenger in anger, the Mexican lining up seventh in the running order while topping the morning's lap count with 76 laps.

It was a low-key morning for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. While there was still no sign of porpoising on the Brackley squad's car, Bahrain's hot temperatures appeared to weigh on the W14's handling and subsequently on its performance, with Hamilton seen frequently battling twitches of understeer.

Finally, rounding off the top ten were McLaren's Lando Norris who appeared non too satisfied with the Woking-based outfit's slow start, and AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda.

This afternoon's track action will resume at 12:00 GMT or 13:00 CET.

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