Pre-Season testing - Bahrain Day 1 21-02-23

 

At the end of a busy first day of testing in Sakhir, unsurprisingly its Max Verstappen at the top of the

leaderboard with a 1:31.3 on the medium compound tires. He beat second place Lando Norris by more than a second but has raced both morning and afternoon so has more laps in than the other drivers.

Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly round out the top 5.

All the drivers were out on track today apart from Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez, who will be out on track

tomorrow.

Although track times from pre-season testing are not a sure thing when it comes to actual races, it is nice to see some surprises higher up on the table.

While mainly uneventful there were a few drivers who suffered with car troubles today. Both Williams had issues and only managed to complete 61 laps in total all day. A yellow flag was raised for Alex Albon in the morning session as he stopped in the gravel with a fuel pump failure. Logan also had to go back in with a suspected drive shaft issue, after going into the gravel at turn 10.

Kevin Magnussen in the Haas spent some time in the garage in the morning session due to a reported fuel issue. He came in 10th overall in the results from today.

Lance Stroll lost a wing mirror in the afternoon session, which was narrowly missed by Daniel Ricciardo but ran over by Nico Hulkenberg.

After Max Verstappen has performed so well today in the RB20, it will be interesting to see how Sergio Perez does in the same car tomorrow. Can he do as well or is the seat more deserved by someone else?? Daniel Ricciardo has shown what the Racing bulls car can do today so is there hope for some podiums for him this season??

~T~