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Formula 1 Bahrain March Testing

F1 Bahrain pre-season test - Day 3

Minute by minute updates on the final day of the 2022 Bahrain F1 pre-season test

Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari F1-75, leads Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18

Track action gets underway at 7am GMT and finishes at 4pm GMT. The day will be split by a one-hour lunch break (11am-12pm GMT) which can be reduced if requested due to lost track time from either red flags or poor weather conditions.

Haas has been granted extra time to catch up on the missed four hours of track running on Thursday, following a late arrival of its freight to the circuit. The US team was permitted an extra hour of track time after the chequered flag on Friday and will be permitted to run an extra hour this morning plus have two hours of further running this evening.

New signing Kevin Magnussen, replacing Nikita Mazepin, following the termination of his contract, made good use of this extra testing time by posting Friday’s fastest time courtesy of a 1m33.207s effort set on C4 tyre in cooler conditions.

AlphaTauri set the pace on Thursday while Ferrari led the way open Friday before Magnussen’s late show.

McLaren will head into the final day again without Daniel Ricciardo, who had been absent from the test due to feeling unwell before testing positive for Covid-19 on Friday night. Lando Norris will pilot the MCL36 in the Australian’s absence.

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Vettel makes it three's company on the track in the Aston Martin, having taken over from team-mate Stroll who put in 53 laps this morning.
Stopwatch
The C2-shod Russell meanwhile jumps up to 10th place overall with a 1m37.849s.
Stopwatch
Bottas, on the C1s, has a personal best of 1m40.629s but given his run plan the outright lap time isn't too relevant at this stage compared to the rest of the times from this morning.
Russell comes out of the Mercedes garage to give Bottas some company on the track, with the Finn straight into a long run for Alfa Romeo.
Bottas rolls through the pitlane at the end of his opening lap to complete some installations before getting cracking with the meaty workload of testing.
Lights green

Off we go for the afternoon session - Bottas out immediately for Alfa Romeo.

Russell is sat on top of the halo and facing backwards on his Mercedes car, which is a less conventional position in the car, but at least he’s ready to go for the start of the session.

Who is ready for the final session of pre-season testing? Just four more hours of action to go.
Photo

Amazingly, this isn't even the smallest starting grid in F1 in the last year. Hamilton on his own at last season's Hungarian GP restart was perhaps the oddest moment of a truly bonkers season.

 

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The same can be said for Gasly who notched up 91 laps this morning. Most teams would be content with that number of laps over a single day, so to do it in half that time, blimey.
Thanks very much JBL. With Ricciardo unwell due to COVID-19 - sending get well soon wishes - thoughts are also sent to Lando Norris and, specifically, his neck. Three consecutive days of F1 testing must be physically gruelling.
While we're in the quiet part of the day, Haydn is now going to take over update duties - over to you, sir!

F1 Bahrain pre-season testing Day 3 line-ups - afternoon session

Mercedes: George Russell
Red Bull: Max Verstappen
Ferrari: Charles Leclerc
McLaren: Lando Norris
Alpine: Fernando Alonso
AlphaTauri: Yuki Tsunoda
Aston Martin: Sebastian Vettel
Williams: Alex Albon, Nicholas Latifi
Alfa Romeo: Valtteri Bottas
Haas: Mick Schumacher
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Big "you're doing amazing, sweetie" vibes down at Haas: 

 

Breaking news

2022 Bahrain F1 test: Perez puts Red Bull top on final morning

Red Bull driver Sergio Perez has clocked the fastest time on the final morning of 2022 Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2022-bahrain-f1-test-perez-sets-the-pace-on-final-morning-/8925828/

Checkered flag
That's your lot for this session! Perez quickest overall, from Zhou, Gasly, Sainz, Alonso and Norris.
Lights out
Gasly gets away very well, with Perez folding in behind - Stroll and Zhou follow suit. That was fun, but not quite worth the wait - next weekend should be more fun, naturally...
The drivers are coming around again to try and get a standing start in. Gasly will start in a nominal P1, with Perez P2, Stroll P3 and Zhou P4.
Start aborted, extra formation lap. Oh, quelle surprise...
We've got Perez, Zhou, Gasly and Stroll out there, so we should be getting a standing start here. In theory. Pardon our cynicism.
The session has resumed, with a few cars appearing: the suggestions are we might have a standing start opportunity, but whether that actually happens is another thing entirely...
So the FIA is testing their systems for a race start - but they've decided not to involve the cars in this given yesterday's fiasco.
Red flag
We have a red flag. Are we actually going to get a start test today?
Gasly's up to 88 laps now and still on track, with Perez, Zhou, Sainz and Latifi also out on the road - the latter having another wide at Turn 10.
Meanwhile, Latifi's having a good race with Sainz out there - but the Ferrari then dispatches the Williams and gets on his merry way.
We've got just over 20 minutes left in this morning session, before the F1 teams break for an hour's lunch - not that it's really a break for the mechanics, who will have to enact any switches in personnel behind the wheel.
Gasly's first into the 80-lap bracket; AlphaTauri delivered over 100 laps over both days, and that looks set to continue. Hopefully we've not jinxed that.
Haydn Cobb
Haydn Cobb
"I'd pick 22, not through a show of solidarity for Tsunoda or Button, it is just my lucky number. But on the theme of songs and numbers, since I've wanted that number a certain Taylor Swift song has become associated to it, so that could be equally annoying to 64."
Latifi is another driver to be caught out at Turn 10, which isn't a surprise on those C1 tyres. Gasly's back out and circulating on the C2s, and looks set to surpass Hamilton's lap count of 78.
In other submissions, 'Tripoli Austra' says 73, as 7 and 3 are their lucky numbers, Dre Harrison says "5. It’s 101 in binary" - and we've got a 24 in deference to Kobe (might have to fight Zhou for that one) and a 46 for Valentino Rossi. Oh, and of course, a 69.
We've got a few numbers already: Aimee says "I would have picked 17 bc that’s my birthday but that’s retired for Jules so maybe 8 or 21", 'Depressed Arsenal Fan' says 95 for Lightning McQueen, and 'tejalone' says...5/8. Touch of the Futurama about that one.
Alonso improves with his latest run, a 1m35.328s on what appears to be the C4 tyre. He remains P5, but gets a little closer to Sainz's time.
For the record, I'd pick 64 - largely to annoy everyone with the memory of the theme song to 64 Zoo Lane. 64, 64, 64 Zoo Lane.
So let's open this up to a question as we're deep in longer runs: which race number would you pick if you were a Formula 1 driver, and why? Feel free to reply with #autosportlive if you fancy playing along!
Latifi asks for a little bit more front wing, continuing his stint on the hard tyres. He's on 51 laps, currently P7 on the timing board.
Big thanks to Tom and Stefan for manning the early stint! Lots of laps going on, Hamilton already on 70 laps after three hours of running, with Gasly on 66 and Zhou on 64.

By: autosport.com

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