Red Bull’s Sergio Perez beat Alonso to set the quickest time in FP1, held in full daylight conditions, before double world champion Alonso topped FP2 after darkness had descended.
Bahrain Grand Prix FP1 results: Perez fastest from Alonso
What happened in Bahrain GP Free Practice 1?
Alonso set the early bar at 1m35.048s on medium tyres for Aston Martin, before Perez took over at the top of the times with 1m34.343s on mediums, some seven tenths faster. Alonso also improved his time but was over half a second off that pace.
At the halfway point, Perez and team-mate Max Verstappen switched to soft tyres on their Red Bulls. Perez lowered his own benchmark with a 1m32.758s, 0.617s faster than Verstappen’s 1m33.375s, and over two seconds clear of the opposition.
Alonso then split the Red Bulls with 1m33.196s on his soft-tyre run, with Lando Norris jumping up to fourth for McLaren.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was an impressive fifth on mediums, 1.5s off the pace with 1m34.257s. The Italian team had earlier trialled a single-pillar rear wing design, that proved to be very wobbly on track.
Leclerc’s team-mate Carlos Sainz suffered a huge spin at Turn 9 with 20 minutes remaining, as the rear of his car bottomed-out too hard over a bump. Sainz remained planted at the bottom of the times, after not running on soft tyres.
Lance Stroll was back in his Aston Martin after suffering a wrist injury in a cycling accident, which forced him to miss all of testing, but he lost the first half of the session with an ignition problem. He recovered to end the session in sixth.
Mercedes didn’t run the softs and placed 10th and 11th with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell respectively, both over 2s off the pace.
Bahrain Grand Prix FP2 results: Alonso fastest from Verstappen
What happened in Bahrain GP Free Practice 2?
After the sun had set, track temperatures tumbled to give much more reflective track conditions for qualifying and the race.
After a poor showing in FP1, Alpine went straight out on softs with Esteban Ocon producing 1m32.415s before Sainz took P1 with 1m31.956s. Leclerc, despite complaining of a clutch issue, beat that by just over a tenth with 1m31.843s.
Just before the halfway point, Stroll went to the top with 1m31.450s. The fastest times then came thick and fast, with Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) producing 1m31.376s and Perez lapping in 1m31.078s, before Alonso achieved 1m30.907s – which proved to be the quickest lap of the day.
Verstappen…
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