Max Verstappen has closed out the first day of pre-season testing in P3 in Bahrain. Verstappen, who got to give the new RB21 a whirl in the afternoon session, drove 74 laps and set his fastest time of 1:30.674, driven on the C3-compound tyres.
With these times the four-time world champion was about two-tenths of a second slower than fastest man Lando Norris in the McLaren. George Russell ended in P2 for Mercedes, in a session interrupted for about an hour by a power outage.
After the first test day, Max shares his first impressions: “From the driving that I did so far everything felt good. No bad surprises – only good surprises.
I don’t need to talk about pure pace, because we don’t know that yet, but everything is working well and the car is doing what I want it to do. It feels all in control and that is what we can hope for, really, to start off my testing.”
According to Verstappen, this is a good base for the team to further develop the car from: “We are constantly learning and trying different things and will continue to do so.
It’s not really about hitting the perfect lap – that’s what you need to do in Melbourne –but it is about going through our testing programme and learning what direction we need to push the car in further to get it more under control… and faster, at the end of the day.”
After a brief getting-to-know-you session with the RB21 yesterday during film day, four-time world champion Max Verstappen gets to properly take the car for a spin for the first time today.
After new teammate Liam Lawson secured the second fastest time during the morning session, he passed Max the baton for the afternoon session. Today is the first of three test days on the Bahrain International Circuit, which was beset by strong winds and cool temperatures.
All the ten teams have switched their drivers during lunch break. For Sauber and Racing Bulls, this means that their rookies Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoletto are on the track for the first time. Just as in the morning session, many cars are outfitted with aero racks and flow-vis paint.
After around three-quarters of an hour, Hadjar spins coming out of turn four. After a clean pirouette the 20-year-old Frenchman is back on his way. Verstappen, too, has some narrowly avoided misadventures during his fast laps, attributable to the wind gusts assailing the track.
An hour into the session, George Russell in his Mercedes on the C3-compound tyres improves on the time his teammate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, set in the morning session.
George climbs to the top of the timesheets. Max also improves on his teammate’s time driving on the harder C2-tyres, setting a flying lap of 1:31.444. Moments later Charles Leclerc in his Ferrari becomes the first driver of the session to duck under 1 minute 30 seconds, with a time of 1:30.878.
Sometime after the halfway point of the session, the grid brought to a standstill by a power outage. All the lights on the circuit and in the garages fall out, making it unsafe to drive.
After an hour of waiting, the lights come back on, and the track is cleared for use once again. In the meantime, the sun has set, but the time lost will be compensated by extending the testing session by an hour.
With just half an hour on the clock, Lando Norris shoots to the top of the timesheets in his McLaren on the C3-compound tyres, setting a time of 1:30.430. Later Max also reappears on track, now on the C3-compound tyres, and sets a time of 1:30.674, making him good for P2.
Miraculously, rain starts to trickle onto the Bahrain track, but this doesn’t seem to defer the drivers. George Russell squeezes in between Norris and Max on the timesheets, demoting Max to P3.
Norris ends the day in fastest, followed at a 0.157-second by Russell, with Max at a 0.244-second distance in P3. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz complete the top five in a session that heavily implies every team has designed a reliable car.
Esteban Ocon is, with 88 laps, the most active driver on the grid. The Frenchman, alongside teammate Oliver Bearman, ends the stint on the bottom of the timesheets, indicating the Haas has been focusing on testing areas other than fast laps.
Tomorrow Liam Lawson will spend the whole day in the RB21, with Max scheduled to drive a full day on Friday, making him the Red Bull driver to close out the testing period on a season that will get properly underway in Australia, in two weeks’ time.
