Alfa Romeo’s Zhou sets fastest time in second day of testing

SAKHIR, Bahrain — Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu topped the second day of preseason testing in Bahrain, beating world champion Max Verstappen to the fastest time by 0.040s.

Zhou’s presence at the top of the timesheets served as a reminder of how difficult it is to read into the competitive order at testing due to the huge amount of variables that dictate each lap time.

While Alfa Romeo’s pace has looked respectable throughout the two days of testing, Red Bull remain the clear favourites after two days of testing and no driver has clocked a time within a second of last year’s pole position lap for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Verstappen had held the fastest time for the vast majority of the afternoon after setting his lap time — a 1:31.650 — early in the afternoon on the C3 compound tyre.

By comparison, Zhou set his time on the softest tyre compound in Pirelli’s range, the C5, and once the sun had set, which results in cooler and faster track conditions.

Aside from those clear variables, the fuel loads and engine modes of the two drivers were unknown and likely contributed to help explain Zhou’s relatively strong showing.

Perhaps more impressive and more ominous for Red Bull’s rivals was the world champions’ ability to complete a race simulation in the morning session with Sergio Perez.

Teams attempt to simulate race conditions in testing in order to understand how the car will fare over a full grand prix distance, but the practice is usually reserved for when the team has a solid understanding of its car.

AlphaTauri also completed a race simulation on the second morning with Yuki Tsunoda, while Zhou and Williams’ Logan Sargeant completed one in the afternoon.

Ferrari, which is so far emerging as Red Bull’s closest competition this year, also appeared to attempt a race simulation in the afternoon session with Charles Leclerc, but the run was interrupted by George Russell’s Mercedes stopping on track.

Leclerc finished the day eighth fastest, with teammate Carlos Sainz setting the sixth fastest time in the morning session.

“Obviously we are not showing everything as it’s only testing, but that is why it’s very, very important for us to focus on ourselves and no teams will really show potential here,” Leclerc said. “So we’ll just focus on ourselves, try and get the best feeling from these three test days and be as ready as possible for next week.”

Mercedes appears to be struggling the most among F1’s top teams and Russell’s issue, which was linked…