Carlos Sainz Jnr posted the quickest time in the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain, seven tenths of a second ahead of Sergio Perez.
The Ferrari driver took over the SF-24 from team mate Charles Leclerc for the evening session and used the C4 compound tyres to post a 1’29.921, comfortably quicker than Max Verstappen’s best time of the first day of running on Wednesday.
After Thursday’s first session was cut short due to a loose drain cover, an hour was added to the evening’s running, giving drivers five hours of running time. Ferrari gave Leclerc the opportunity to continue in the car for the first hour after the break before Sainz took over.
Lando Norris, Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen took over their respective cars for the evening session, with Sergio Perez, Lewis Hamilton and Logan Sargeant each continuing to complete a full day in their cars.
Leclerc’s best time of a 1’31.750 from the early session remained untouched over the opening hour of running, before Hamilton improved on the C3 compound tyres to move into second on the timing screen. That put him just ahead of Oscar Piastri’s time from the early session but still half a second from Leclerc’s best up to that point.
Around 90 minutes into running, Sainz headed out on a fresh set of C3 tyres and posted a 1’31.856, the fastest time of the second session and just a tenth slower than his team mate’s time from the first. Soon after, Bottas put his Sauber third-fastest on the day before Norris jumped ahead of his team mate and Bottas to go third himself, two tenths off Leclerc’s benchmark.
Around 4pm, Sainz posted a new fastest lap of the day with a 1’31.397, two tenths quicker than his team mate’s previous best and almost matching Verstappen’s fastest time of the test from Wednesday. Soon after, he pitted for C4 compound tyres – the second-softest in the range – and headed out to post a new quickest time of the test of 1’30.686, the first driver under 1’31 over the two days.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Not long after, Sainz used a second set of new C4s to lower his own best time by two tenths to 1’30.424. Meanwhile, Norris took a fresh set of C3s to improve his personal best to a 1’31.256, comfortably second and quicker than Verstappen’s best from Wednesday.
Perez had a scare when his Red Bull slowed to a crawl at turn 13 and appeared to be in ‘limp home’ mode. Fortunately, the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…