Leclerc fastest as unreliability hits Mercedes, Red Bull

Charles Leclerc topped the second morning of Formula 1’s opening Bahrain pre-season test, as Mercedes and Red Bull were hit by reliability trouble alongside Cadillac.

About an hour and 15 minutes into the session, Leclerc drove Ferrari’s SF-26 to a 1m34.273s, which is four tenths faster than McLaren’s Lando Norris achieved on Wednesday.

Norris’ own 1m34.669s benchmark was set on medium tyres, however, while Leclerc turned to softs throughout this morning’s session. The Briton came second – again on mediums – with a 1m34.784s.

Every other car was at least 2.4s off the pace, which obviously isn’t representative of the pecking order but isn’t unrelated to the gremlins encountered by two favourites.

Red Bull completed a single lap at the very end of the morning session, with the team understood to have found a hydraulic leak on the chassis during the car build yesterday. Isack Hadjar was supposed to run through the whole day, so the French sophomore will hope for a chance to catch up later.

At Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli managed just three laps before encountering a power unit issue that ruled him out of the remainder of the morning session. George Russell was supposed to take over for the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Cadillac’s Sergio Perez caused a red flag on his first out-lap for an unspecified reason, but after the car was retrieved it swiftly joined the fray again.

Perez went on to complete 42 laps, with a personal reference of 1m38.653s, which was slower than anyone but Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in 1m38.960s.

Alpine was best of the rest with Pierre Gasly lapping in 1m36.723s, leading Oliver Bearman (Haas), Alexander Albon (Williams), Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) and Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls).

A Virtual Safety Car and red flag simulation was performed at the end of the session.

F1 Bahrain pre-season test Day 2 – morning results

Pos	DRIVER	TEAM	Lap Time	GAP	LAPS
1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1m34.273s		62
2	Lando Norris	McLaren	1m34.784s	+0.511s	64
3	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1m36.723s	+2.450s	61
4	Oliver Bearman	Haas	1m37.025s	+2.752s	55
5	Alex Albon	Williams	1m37.229s	+2.956s	62
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Audi	1m37.266s	+2.993s	47
7	Liam Lawson	Racing Bulls	1m38.017s	+3.744s	50
8	Sergio Perez	Cadillac	1m38.653s	+4.380s	42
9	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1m38.960s	+4.687s	55
10	Andrea Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	–	–	3
11	Isack Hadjar	Red Bull	–	–	1

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