F1 Bahrain pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 4
Follow along for updates on the first day of F1's second 2026 pre-season test in Bahrain
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Nearly two hours in, Haas and Racing Bulls lead the lap-count tally on 37 and 35 laps respectively.
Cadillac is at the other end of the list, with two laps for Perez.
Antonelli fastest in sector one and three! But he lost a lot of time in sector two, he's 0.4s off. He's on C3 tyres.
As mentioned earlier, Esteban Ocon thinks the midfield is seconds off, and this is hard to argue against. Fourth-placed Albon is 1.5s slower than Antonelli in third.
Lindblad reaches 40 laps with Racing Bulls. Most other teams are on 28 at least; the only exceptions are Red Bull (13) and Cadillac (2).
Only the top three are on track right now. Norris just went wide in Turn 11.
Perez returns to the track in the Cadillac.
There has been much to say about F1's newest team, including how they had to use fake tyres in the wind tunnel for a while, and their different approach to Haas regarding how many parts they're buying from Ferrari.
Sergio Perez, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
Perez sets an opening lap time, a modest 1m41.792s.
The Mexican improves to a 1m41.288s, as Antonelli locks up and goes wide into Turn 1.
Perez improves in none of the three sectors this time around, but his overall time is better, 1m41.144s.
The Cadillac driver goes down to 1m40.892s.
Antonelli had a wobble as he attempted to get the power down on the kerb at the exit of Turn 10.
Perez improves in sector one but laps half a second off his best.
Lap tally:
Racing Bulls 51 (Lindblad)
McLaren 48 (Norris)
Mercedes 47 (Antonelli)
Haas 44 (Ocon)
Ferrari 43 (Leclerc)
Alpine 39 (Gasly)
Audi 37 (Hulkenberg)
Williams 35 (Albon)
Aston Martin 28 (Alonso)
Red Bull 13 (Hadjar)
Cadillac 12 (Perez)
Huge lock-up from Norris, who went wide into Turn 10 and didn't even attempt to reach the apex.
Lap tally average per team for engine manufacturers:
Mercedes 42
Audi 37
Ferrari 33
Red Bull Ford 32
Honda 28
A bit of a meaningless stat given Mercedes supplies four teams while Honda and Audi have one, but it's reasonably close.
Four cars in the top five and 175 laps completed as we write this – a decent morning for Mercedes-powered outfits so far.
Thank you Ben Vinel for overseeing a fine morning stint, this test is already flying by with just a final hour to go in this morning session before the lunch break. Plenty of long-run stints going on at the moment as the peak heat of the day starts to hit.
But we are without Hadjar in the Red Bull who has not been out on the track for around 90 minutes now.
Leclerc dips two wheels across the gravel exiting Turn 4 on his race run as his tyres begin to cry enough on this stint. The Ferrari driver is on the test tyre to give us an extra element of guess work in terms of what is performance and what is sandbagging.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images
To briefly take attention away from what is happening on the track today, an F1 Commission meeting is being held this morning and at the top of the agenda is concerns over these new cars regarding starts, overtaking and lift and coast on the straights. McLaren boss Andrea Stella summed up the situation at the end of the first Bahrain test here:
The meeting is still ongoing but the key findings will be if there's an agreement to make rule changes to ease concerns raised following the first test in Bahrain. For example, changing the start race procedure to provide time for all drivers to spool up enough energy to charge the battery for the race start. But if one engine manufacturer can do it quicker and more efficient than others, they may not wish to give a free edge to rivals.
Back on the track and Leclerc pits at the end of a stint on the test tyre, engages a practice launch from the pitbox and then immediately hits the anchors to stop and be pulled into the garage by the Ferrari mechanics. All part of the plan, even if it looked a little uncertain when it happened live.
In cased you missed it, here's a handy video guide to everything we learned from the first Bahrain test and what to look out for at the second test.
Watch: Autosport Explains: F1 Testing Update
Red Bull has been stuck in the garage for coming up to a couple of hours due to a pressure problem with one of the coolant circuits in the engine. The team is confident of fixing the issue, but it is a lengthy task to complete - hence the long period of pause.
Alonso has been spotted in Aston's hospitality getting into his lunch so we can presume that is also an early end to his morning's running.
Meanwhile, Antonelli has just overtaken Albon up the inside into Turn 13 which is not a place we are used to seeing passes made. Albon didn't put up much of a fight so we can't say if it was genuine, but we've been told to be ready to see overtakes at unusual spots.
Perez locks up into Turn 1 and needs to use the run-off to get his Cadillac under control before rejoining the track. No major harm done but his yellow-walled C3 tyres will not have enjoyed that experience.
Perez has duly ditched those tyres for a fresh set of white-walled C2 tyres.
Meanwhile, we're going through a race control systems check which started with a yellow flag and then a virtual safety car. So that's your lot in terms of representative laps.
Yep, a red flag has been displayed but we can confidently declare that no driver or team has hit a spot of bother. It is testing after all!
The track has returned to green and there will be a pretend rolling restart involving Albon, Norris, Antonelli and Perez. Can Albon keep the 'lead' into Turn 1?
Yes he can! Albon leads but Norris leaks positions to Perez and Antonelli...
See, it is a good way to test for us too.
Albon opts to pit but the three remaining drivers take part in a practice start on the grid, pushing off one by one. Antonelli and Perez both get a lot of wheelspin out of the blocks, but Norris is slightly smoother away. At least there was no near-misses with the wall like Colapinto on the final day of the first test.
So, that's it for the morning action. Leclerc leads the order for Ferrari to provide another name at the top of the standings.
This is how the morning results ended up:
| Pos |
Driver |
Best Lap | Gap |
Team (Engine) |
Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Charles Leclerc | 1m33.739s | Ferrari (Ferrari) | 70 | |
| 2 | Lando Norris | 1m34.052s | +0.313s | McLaren (Mercedes) | 54 |
| 3 | Kimi Antonelli | 1m34.158s | +0.419s | Mercedes (Mercedes) | 69 |
| 4 | Alex Albon | 1m35.690s | +1.951s | Williams (Mercedes) | 55 |
| 5 | Pierre Gasly | 1m35.898s | +2.159s | Alpine (Mercedes) | 61 |
| 6 | Isack Hadjar | 1m36.188s | +2.449s | Red Bull (RBPT) | 13 |
| 7 | Esteban Ocon | 1m36.418s | +2.679s | Haas (Ferrari) | 65 |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | 1m36.536s | +2.797s | Aston Martin (Honda) | 28 |
| 9 | Nico Hulkenberg | 1m36.741s | +3.002s | Audi (Audi) | 49 |
| 10 | Arvid Lindblad | 1m36.769s | +3.030s | Racing Bulls (RBPT) | 75 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | 1m38.191s | +4.452s | Cadillac (Ferrari) | 24 |
Aston Martin has announced it had a power unit-related issue that it is checking over before it can return to the track this afternoon. Given how its testing has gone so far, that is more worrying news for the team in green.
During the lunch break there's a bumper pair of official press conferences, the first one with the drivers includes Alonso, Bottas, Hamilton, Verstappen and Bortoleto. The key moments and quotes will follow here shortly.
I reckon there should be a competition for the biggest and best aero rake on show at testing. This offering from Red Bull earlier this morning is a new front runner.
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images
Speaking in the drivers press conference, Verstappen had this to say on his criticism of the new F1 cars from last week and if his opinion has changed: “What I think? A lot and nothing at the moment. Yeah, I don't know. I'll just go to Melbourne and see for myself. I have no idea.”
Verstappen was later pressed on if F1 had put pressure on him to ease off on his criticism: “I'm just sharing my opinion. So I think we live in a free world, free speech. And yeah, that's what I felt.
“Not everyone needs to feel like that, but that's how I felt. And then, it also doesn't matter, of course, what other people have to say about that. It's just I got a question and I shared my opinion. I think that I'm allowed to do, you know, so it's not about receiving pushback or whatever.”
More from Verstappen on his comments from last week calling new F1 “Formula E on steroids”: “I want us to actually stay away from that and be Formula 1. So don't increase the battery. Actually, get rid of that and focus on a nice engine and have Formula E as Formula E, because that's what they are about.
“And I'm sure that with the new [Formula E Gen4] car from what I've seen and talked to some of my friends in there, that's going to be also a really cool car. But let them be Formula E and we should stay Formula 1 and let's try not to mix that.”
Verstappen wanting to drop the battery element to F1's power unit entirely will definitely chime well with the V8 gang after that push gained traction just over a year ago. For the record, these rules are set to run until at least 2030 so it might be a while until that proposal regains momentum. But it is an undeniable talking point at the heart of what F1 is and what it wants to be.
More on the latest news and views from the press conferences as we get it, but we'll turn our attention back to the on-track action as the afternoon session is about to burst into life.
By: Autosport Staff
