Sakhir F1 test, Day 2: Sainz quickest ahead of Verstappen, Stroll

Ferrari’s bright start to the new era of Formula 1 continued as Carlos Sainz set the fastest time of the second day of the official test at the Bahrain International Circuit. The Spanish driver posted a best time of 1:33.532 to beat world champion Max Verstappen by almost half a second.

However, after the close of the session, returning Haas driver Kevin Magnussen jumped past Sainz to post a lap of 1:33.207 during the extra time allocated to the US team to make up for the freght issues that cost them half of the opening day’s running.

Sainz’s table-topping lap came 90 minutes from the end of the session. He first used medium tyres to set a lap of 1:33.943 and then bolted on a set of the C4 compound tyres to oust the morning’s fastest man, Esteban Ocon, from top spot.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll also challenged for honours with a time of 1:34.064s but though he too shuffled Ocon back, the Canadian was then moved back to third by a late run from Verstappen who used the C4 tyre to set a time of 1:34.011, 0.479s off the pace of Sainz.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton also made a late dash on soft compound tyres, though the seven-time champion used C5 tyres to set a time of 1:31.141, which was good enough for fourth ahead of Ocon.

The Alpine driver’s morning was more successful than his later run. Half way through the afternoon the Frenchman pulled over at the side of track at the request of his team after they spotted an anomaly in data. The stoppage brought out the red flags but Ocon was soon back on track and ended the day with a total of 111 laps.

Charles Leclerc, at the wheel of Ferrari’s SF-75 in the morning session, took sixth place with a time of 1:34.366 ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris who also brought out the red flags early in the morning session when he stopped just as he was leaving the pit lane. He was soon back on track and took seventh place at the flag, just over a second behind Sainz.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was eighth for Aston Martin ahead of Magnussen at the flag. AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was tenth at the close of official running he topped the day two mileage chart by completing 120 laps of the Sakhir track.

The day’s lowest count went to the unfortunate Nicholas Latifi. The Canadian’s Williams caught fire during the morning session and in the end he completed just 12 laps.

Update : Kevin Magnussen set the fastest time of the Bahrain test so far in the first of the extra hours of running allotted to his team. The Dane finished the collective testing portion of the day in ninth place, but soon began to get quicker once Haas’s ‘extra time’ commenced.