F1 Bahrain 2021 pre-season testing - Day 2
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It's a 1m30.586s for Norris, who vaults to the top once more! C4 tyres delivering the goods.
We've all three of Gasly, Giovinazzi and Norris all on a 1m30.8s - so tight margins at the moment! But Norris is going quicker...
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Bottas did a 1m31.245s on the alternative C3 tyres he's running, which looks a lot more reasonable from Mercedes.
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Next to move up the order is Stroll, as the Aston racer goes ninth on the medium tyres - many of the other improvers have been soft-shod.
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Leclerc also improves but runs wide at the final corner, meaning it's just up to sixth he moves to.
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More improvements coming in as Bottas is now fourth for Mercedes.
Plenty of work going on at the back of the Red Bull following that incident with the engine cover coming loose earlier.
Plenty happening as now Latifi has had a quick spin heading into Turn 1!
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And the answer is an emphatic no! Gasly now goes quicker on a 1m30.825s!
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There's three purple sectors from Giovinazzi as he powers the Alfa back to the top of the timesheets. Can it stay there for longer this time?
Gasly and Schumacher now join Giovinazzi out on track.
Green flag
The circuit is now clear and the session has resumed. Giovinazzi has immediately headed back out.
Various marshals and circuit staff are on the pit straight now picking up bits of carbon fibre by hand. But something a bit more sophisticated may be needed to make sure all the shards of debris are removed...
Replays have shown that it was just as Perez dived out from Latifi's slipstream that the turbulent air got underneath the engine cover and fired it off the back of the car. With debris littering the track, a red flag was inevitable.
Red flag
The engine cover has come off the back of Perez's Red Bull after he was following Latifi's Williams very closely on the pit straight - and now the session has been red-flagged.
Yellow flag
There's a lot of debris on the pit straight! Not sure where that's come from!
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Gasly goes one better, up to third place with a 1m31.683s.
Giovinazzi has also improved his best time to a 1m31.323s, the equivalent of a gnat's whisker behind Norris (0.084s), before joining him in the pits.
Latifi's the next driver to hit the century, after second-placed Giovinazzi reached a three-figure count earlier on.
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A good lap there from Pierre Gasly to move up to fourth. He's posted a 1m31.999s to put himself a shade behind Perez.
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Perez has had two purple microsectors on this lap - each sector being split up between eight-to-10 mini sectors. On the C2 tyres, he pokes home a 1m31.926s. Good lap, there.
It's getting a little bit dark in Bahrain now, as dusk falls and the floodlights come on. We've got just over an hour and a half remaining of the second day.
Just Alonso, Schumacher and Bottas on the road at the moment - oh, there's a Perez too.
It's a McLaren-Alfa Romeo 1-2 for the moment then - a combination that hasn't been seen often in F1, but isn't totally unheard of.
The 2012 Belgian GP is best-remembered for the first corner shunt that would prove so costly to Fernando Alonso's title hopes that year, but featured a Jenson Button-Kamui Kobayashi front row back when Alfa was known as Sauber.
The 2012 Belgian GP is best-remembered for the first corner shunt that would prove so costly to Fernando Alonso's title hopes that year, but featured a Jenson Button-Kamui Kobayashi front row back when Alfa was known as Sauber.
2012 Belgian GP press conference
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Mercedes doing a little bit of aero work, daubing the flow-vis on the rear wing to check out what the airflow's up to. After that slide on the exit of Turn 4, it's possibly up to no good...
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That was a little flurry of excitement, wasn't it? Bottas has also taken his Mercedes to P10 in the standings on the C2 tyres. Not bad for the little Brackley squad...
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...Norris goes even quicker, sweeping to a trio of purple sectors and logs a 1m31.239s. C4s for him too.
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That's some way to mark 100 laps! Giovinazzi posts a 1m31.533s on C4 tyres to go top! But...
Here's a pair of 2006 Bahrain GP debutants - Super Aguri's Yuji Ide and Toro Rosso's Scott Speed carving up some track. Ide's career lasted four races before losing his superlicence - Speed, on the other hand, departed Toro Rosso midway through 2007.
Stroll's back on the road, as is Norris. The Canadian's on a decent lap on his return...
We're coming up to the final two hours, Gasly and Latifi still trundling around. I bet we come back here in two weeks, and they'll still be circulating...
Gasly taking a tighter line into T13, follows Latifi into the final corner, pumps on DRS to have another tilt at the Williams! He sends it down the inside of Turn 1, and claims the track position. The most fun we've had all day...
Gasly had the DRS on Latifi, but just couldn't pull alongside the Williams there. Latifi has the line, for now.
We've got a nice little catfight between Latifi and Gasly, fighting over...something. Prime spot in the dinner queue?
Rosberg's 2006 debut didn't get off to the best of starts, but he did go on to become the youngest driver, at the time, to set the fastest lap in a race...
Sorry, Karun...
Chandhok had a difficult debut with the Hispania team in 2010, getting his first runs in qualifying and then crashing on the endurance layout of the Bahrain track. In fairness, we're not sure how useful the front-wing on that thing was anyway.
A little while back we asked about the nine drivers to make their F1 debut in the Bahrain GP. In case you were still wondering, here's the list:
Nico Rosberg
Scott Speed
Yuji Ide
Vitaly Petrov
Nico Hulkenberg
Karun Chandhok
Bruno Senna
Lucas di Grassi
Stoffel Vandoorne
Gasly's been quietly pounding around the circuit, just doing his race sims at the moment. Latifi is doing likewise, it seems.
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It's a 1m34.670s for Norris, not a splendiferous lap but it's something to cling to.
By: Jake Boxall-Legge, Tom Howard, James Newbold, Stephen Lickorish
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