Bahrain F1 testing: Verstappen edges Alonso to stay in charge on Day 1

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished the first day of pre-season testing in Bahrain at the top of the timesheets with the fastest time.
His 32.837 seconds after doing his 156 trouble-free laps on Thursday is nearly his three race distances.

Verstappen was the only driver to stay in the cockpit all day. This is his RB19’s first public appearance, with a dramatic undercut in the sidepods that directs the airflow rearward.

The reigning world champion also had the fastest time before lunch, where he was one.
With 32.959 seconds, he surpassed his Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
After the break he was able to cut his time by over a tenth of his. As the team repaired floor damage to Aston’s Martin, Fernando saved him from a late challenge from Alonso, although he missed his time on the track. Alonso’s best time was set much later than Verstappen’s, making flying laps much more conducive, but it was a strong start for the two-time champion with his new team.

Sainz’s early performances were good enough to keep him in third place on the day’s final timesheets, just ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, who took over for the afternoon in the SF-23.
“It’s early days, but the initial feeling was good,” said new team boss Frédéric Vasseur. The most important thing is to run many kilometers and it was no problem. I am able to execute the execution plan and everything is going well. ”

Fifth was McLaren’s Lando Norris, but the British driver missed his time on the track as the team pursued a technical problem with the wind deflector on his wheel in front of his MCL60. As a result, Norris completed a minimum of 40 laps on the day. This was a total with Felipe Dolgovic, who earlier in the day Aston had problems with his Martin’s electrical system.

In total, 19 drivers completed his 1275 laps at the Bahrain International Circuit on Thursday.
Lewis Hamilton returned to driver duties with the sixth fastest time on Day 1:
In the afternoon and evening sessions, which included over an hour of floodlit night racing, he finished in 33.508 seconds after 83 laps.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was relieved that this year’s first day of testing went much better than last year, when the car’s performance had major problems and ushered in a very disappointing season.

Hamilton’s time was slightly ahead of Alex’s Albon, but only the Williams driver set the fastest lap on the soft C5 rubber, while everyone else flew on the medium C3 rubber for his lap. stayed in Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou was eighth, 0.4 seconds ahead of George Russell, who was driving the Mercedes W14 that day.

Rookie driver Logan Sargent returned to the sport this year with Haas, setting his tenth-fastest time just ahead of Nico Hulkenberg. Another rookie, Nick de Vries, was 13th at the wheel of AlphaTauri.