Pre-season Day 2 Morning Report: Sainz ahead in the charts
The second day of pre-season testing is underway at the Bahrain International Circuit and here's everything you need to know following the morning session.
The drivers
These are the drivers that participated in the morning session.
| Team | Driver |
|---|---|
| Alfa Romeo F1 Team | Zhou Guanyu |
| Aston Martin F1 Team | Fernando Alonso |
| BWT Alpine F1 Team | Esteban Ocon |
| McLaren F1 Team | Lando Norris |
| Mercedes F1 Team | Lewis Hamilton |
| Moneygram Haas F1 Team | Kevin Magnussen |
| Oracle Red Bull Racing | Sergio Perez |
| Scuderia AlphaTauri | Yuki Tsunoda |
| Scuderia Ferrari | Carlos Sainz |
| Williams Racing | Logan Sargeant |
The recap
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz topped the morning session with a time of 1:32.486s in the medium tire compound. The Spaniard was the fastest through sectors 1 and 3. Logan Sargeant was behind in second place, being marginally faster than Sainz through sector 2 but with the soft compound.
Fernando Alonso completed the top three by a gap of 0.483s to the leader, running the mediums.
We saw several runnings with the Pirelli C3 prototype tires. Most teams began their days with the aero rakes, which are kits with sensors that measure the airflow around the car. However, as usual, they were removed for runnings later in the morning.
Sergio Perez had completed three laps before going back to the garage, with the mechanics blocking the view to the outside as intense work happened on the Red Bull car.
What they're saying
- Oscar Piastri, on his first day of pre-season testing: "It was nice to get back on track, I think it was good, making a bit of progress. My first time in a while, getting up to speed with the new generation of F1 cars, bit different to the old beasts I've driven before. Loved it, had a lot of fun, think we are making good progress, settling in nicely, everything was feeling nice and comfy, everything went pretty smoothly."
- Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari: "Really happy to have been back in the car yesterday. I think we are all happy because the data matched with what we had back in the factory which is really important for the first day, so that was our main focus - to put the car in different configurations and see if everything matched. Now we can work on set ups and look at performance."
In the news
- Haas save up to $250k by shrinking the pit wall. "You [either] have six people out there, or a quarter of a million [dollars] on car updates? I know what we are doing" - Guenther Steiner, Haas team principal as quoted by Racefans.net.
- Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive Season 5 is out now.
- Today (February 24) is Alain Prost's 68th birthday.
Testing will continue with the afternoon session and we'll bring you the following report after it. Stay tuned for technical analysis for subscribed members shortly.
Written by Luciano Calamante.