F1 Bahrain 2021 pre-season testing - Day 3
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Hello Yuki Tsunoda! A 1m30.036s on the C4s puts the F1 rookie into second place on the times.
Sainz, on the C2s, jumps up to ninth on the times for Ferrari with a 1m31.070s.
The sun is dipping down below the horizon with 75 minutes of track time to go. It looks very pretty as the sun changes from a McLaren orange to a Ferrari red before disappearing.
Alonso, now also on the softer C4s, continues to chip away at his best lap time. A 1m30.318s puts the Alpine driver up to fourth place for the day.
Young Tsunoda on the C4 tyres leaps up the times with a 1m31.228s to go P9. That lap was 0.4s slower than his team-mate Gasly's best effort from this morning.
Meanwhile down at Aston Martin there are a lot of busy mechanics working on Vettel's car. The German is still in the cockpit but it doesn't look promising as more mechanics arrive to pull the screens across.
Verstappen goes a little wide at Turn 13 but finishes the lap to extend his advantage at the top with a 1m29.792s.
Raikkonen continues to go well this afternoon, posting a 1m30.441s to go fourth. The Finn was on the C4 tyres, but that's still an encouraging time for Alfa Romeo.
Lap time improvements everywhere you look currently. Alonso goes P5 with a 1m30.573s on the yellow C3 tyres, as Vettel moves up to P15 with a 1m35.041s.
...the McLaren driver sets his personal best sector two and three splits but it doesn't bump Verstappen from top spot. Ricciardo's 1m30.144s is enough to claim P2 though.
In between those laps, Raikkonen also stepped up his pace, using the C4s, with a 1m30.637s to go P5. He's in a straight shootout with Russell for most laps by an individual driver for today. It is currently Raikkonen 128-131 Russell.
Hamilton, also on the C3 test tyres, improves with a 1m32.566s but is 2.6s off Verstappen. But you'd confidently predict that won't be the gap between the two come qualifying in two weeks' time.
After a cooldown lap, Verstappen goes again on the same set of tyres but doesn't go faster with a 1m30.3s.
That's the first time in the 1m29s and almost a quarter of a second faster than Perez's leading time from this morning. Got to assume Verstappen hasn't revealed the true pace of the Red Bull yet, but it is looking good for the Milton Keynes-based team.
Verstappen on the C3 test tyres posts a new fastest lap of testing - a 1m29.942s - to make it a Red Bull 1-2. Impressive.
The shadows are steadily growing across the track which means track temperatures will start to cool off as we progress into the night. Will any teams strap on some C4s or C5s for a glory run? Unlikely, but you'd expect some sort of quali sims.
With just under two hours to go Alonso has put in a new personal best of 1m30.943s on the C3s to edge up to P6 for the day.
Thanks very much JBL. Make sure you get your questions to him on Autosport's main Twitter account about all things F1 testing and tech.
"So which button is the ejector seat?" "It's not that kind of Aston Martin, Seb..."
By: Jake Boxall-Legge, Stefan Mackley, Haydn Cobb, Tom Howard
