Leclerc top as morning session cut short

Charles Leclerc ended the Thursday morning session at the top of the pile with a 1m31.750s set on C3 tyres in the limited running.

But as drivers were beginning to settle into their long runs, the red flags were shown as Leclerc’s Ferrari dislodged a drain cover on the run to Turn 11, before the debris was stuck by both the Ferrari driver and Lewis Hamilton.

The red flags were quickly shown after two hours and 22 minutes of running and following a delay of 40 minutes, it was announced that the session would not be resumed.

Ferrari has since confirmed that Leclerc suffered damage to the floor of his SF-24, with the part having already been replaced.

This was particularly bad news for Sergio Perez, who had completed the fewest laps of any driver (20) following an earlier brake problem which had already confined him to the garage for over half an hour.

After Verstappen drove for the entirety of Wednesday, this was Perez’s first official outing in the RB20. While reigning champion Verstappen was scheduled to take over in the cockpit in the afternoon, Autosport has learned this will no longer be the case and Perez will continue.

Despite the problems, Perez registered a 1m.32.879s, putting him fourth in the order.

Also making his first appearance in testing was Lewis Hamilton, who will continue to lap in the afternoon session.

Unlike Perez, Hamilton appeared to enjoy a trouble-free session before striking the drain cover, ending the session sixth-fastest after focussing on long-runs.

Oscar Piastri was second-fastest and picked up where team-mate Lando Norris left off on day one, falling 0.578s shy of Leclerc.

Logan Sargeant was third for Williams, 0.828s off the pace, after the team allowed him some early push laps.

But no driver was able to match Verstappen’s ominous day one time, with Leclerc four-tenths short of the pre-season marker.

The afternoon session has been pulled forward by an hour to begin at 11:00 GMT (14:00 local time) but will conclude at the previously advertised time, meaning it will run for five hours rather than four.

2024 Bahrain F1 test Thursday morning times