Jesus Balseiro / Bahrain
Carlos Sainz gets out of the car this Friday with the best lap in a day and a half of testing: a 1:32.486 achieved with the C3 tire (the soft one for the Bahrain GP) which lowers by four tenths what Verstappen and Alonso did the previous afternoon. The Spaniard is comfortable behind the wheel of the Ferrari, it remains to be seen if Leclerc is close to those records (of time and comfort), and he is confirmed as one of the candidates for everything next week. The SF-23 is complete, it does not give problems. While they squeeze the possibilities of the ‘set-up’, the laps sprout. And the engine seems the reference for the start of the season.
Sargeant (Williams) set the second fastest time of the morning late on and on the C4 compound. But with the C3, the benchmark tire for qualifying at Sakhir, Fernando Alonso was again second, 0.483 behind Ferrari. The Aston Martin is another one of those single-seaters where good times come almost effortlessly. He was in front of the Alfa Romeo, although Zhou was also reasonably fast; and clearly better than Alpine’s fastest lap attempt with Ocon. In any case, the fuel loads are unknown and each team works on their independent programs. It is not competition, they are tests.
