The Monegasque pilot Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) warned the Dutchman this Friday Max Verstappen (Red Bull) at the level of his Ferrari by leading the third and final day of testing at the Sakhir circuit, in Bahrainwhich once again featured the prominence of a poorly sealed sewer which forced us to stop for an hour and a quarter on the last day of testing.
Leclerc, with a time of 1 minute, 30 seconds and 322 thousandths, surpassed Verstappen, fourth, but also the Spaniard Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), octavo to 8 tenths, to Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), nineth at 9, and the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Red Bull), tenth at 1.1 seconds, focused more on knowing the race pace of their respective cars than on doing a real simulation of the qualification.
In fact, Leclerc, Verstappen and the British George Russell (Mercedes) were the only ones who opted to fit a soft tire and test the car on a real flying lap in order to prepare for next week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which will kick off the Formula One season.
After his teammates confirmed in the morning that the car was fine and that it had a good race pace in long runs, the three drivers decided to do a couple of ‘stints’ with soft tires, in the case of Leclerc. -with the C5- with the softest, while Verstappen and Russell opted for a less fast tire but that, at the same time, would degrade less.
However, the key to the session was in the race simulations, where the Monegasque team Ferrari also exhibited great pace with which, it seems, he could give war to the Dutchman, who in recent years has been intractable in command of the Red Bull car.
You must spabilate Fernando Alonso, who lost two tenths on average to Verstappen per lap with C3 rubber, which barely degraded. The Asturian also tested the hardest tire -C1- before returning to the pits, on a day in which he ran 75 laps, while the British Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), historical record holder for victories (103) in Formula One, He barely did 49 laps and finished twelfth.
Once again, a sewer alters plans
As happened on Thursday, this Friday the pre-season tests in Bahrain also had to be stopped due to a poorly sealed manhole cover, a setback that seems common in recent times in Formula 1, since it also occurred during lThe free practice sessions for the Las Vegas Grand Prix from last season.
On this occasion, The session was stopped for an hour and a quarter and, to compensate, the organization eliminated the one-hour break between the morning and afternoon sessions so that the teams would not lose time filming on the track on the last of the three days of testing in the desert, where The 2024 season starts next week.
The problem with the manhole cover in turn 11 altered the program, after only 28 minutes on the track, but, despite this, that time served Sainz to carry out two qualifying simulations and set the best time of the race. tomorrow, a 1’31″247. However, Sainz’s best time, who already came first on Thursday’s day, was finally far from the best time of his teammate, Leclercwho did squeeze his car.
In fact, only Hamilton attempted the real qualifying simulation during the morning, but he overbraked in the first corner and his time was not relevant, while Pérez was in charge of carrying out the long Red Bull runs to facilitate the pick-up. of data.
For his part, the Danish Kevin Magnussen (Haas) was the one that completed the most laps, 80, in the first part of the session in which at 1:00 p.m. CET (-1 GMT) the drivers left their seats for their teammates, except in the case of a team. Williams in which the Thai Alexander Albon rode throughout the day and finished with a total of 121 laps on the circuit that will open the season this coming week.
2024-02-23 16:48:34
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