Sainz narrowly leads Ferrari pair in second day of test · F1 · RaceFans

Carlos Sainz Jnr finished his allocation of pre-season testing for Williams by putting them on top of the times on the second day of running in Bahrain,

The driver who was fastest in pre-season testing last year, for Ferrari, posted the quickest time of the test so far. He set a 1’29.348 shortly after returning to the cockpit following the lunch break.

The two cars of his former team got within a tenth of a second of his time, Lewis Hamilton second for Ferrari ahead of Charles Leclerc.

Sainz was one of two drivers to complete the entire day solo. He logged 127 laps, the most of any driver. Liam Lawson, the other driver who had a car to himself all day, fell short of the 100-lap count after being confined to his garage towards the end of the morning session with an apparent power unit problem.

There was little to separate the Mercedes drivers, George Russell just six-thousandths of a second faster than Andrea Kimi Antonelli as they completed the top five.

Yesterday’s pace-setters McLaren were further down the order but seemed to have plenty of pace in hand. Towards the end of the afternoon session Lando Norris set a series of personal best times in the first two sectors, and the fastest time of all in the middle sector, but chose not to complete his laps. He and Oscar Piastri ended the day ahead of only the Sauber and Haas drivers.

The Haas pair occupied the bottom places on the times sheets for the second day in a row. As yesterday, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman appeared to prioritise high-fuel runs.

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