Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen continued their strong start in the F1 season ahead of the first race in Bahrain, topping the time charts as two free practice sessions concluded on first day.
Max Verstappen set the fastest time in the second practice session finishing ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Halfway into the hour, the reigning champion from Red Bull fitted soft tyres to go fastest with a time of 1m 31.936s. Ferrari’s Leclerc managed his fastest lap that was just 0.087s off the pace with his team mate Carlos Sainz jumping to third later on but half a second away.
Verstappen has looked on form throughout the testing and the free practices as his title rival Lewis Hamilton continues to struggle with the “Porpoising effect”. The seven time world champion also complained of a front brake issue midway through the second session before finishing ninth on the time charts.
His Mercedes team-mate George Russell had a better afternoon finishing fourth while Fernando Alonso took P5 as the last driver within a second of the Dutchman’s pace.
Alfa Romeo’s new driver Valtteri Bottas managed to take P6 after his team fixed his troubling engine which forced him sit out much of FP1 with a power unit issue.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was 1.022s off his team mate finishing seventh ahead of Haas’s Mick Schumacher in P8. Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top 10 to cap off a good day for the Haas, who seemed to have put their Mazepin troubles in the past.
