F1 Bahrain pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 5
Follow for updates of day five from F1 pre-season testing for the 2026 season in Bahrain
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We understand Ferrari's upside-down wing is a test item for now, rather than a permanent improvement.
As you may have noticed, Audi and Racing Bulls are back in action after spending a substantial amount of time in the garage this morning. It's Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson at the wheel.
Dajare has pointed out that Cadillac has not lapped within 107% of the fastest time today.
This admittedly factual statement isn't representative of the situation, as Bottas' quickest lap so far on Thursday is four seconds slower than his best from last week.
As it happens, the Finn ran a 16-lap stint on C3 tyres and is currently doing another long run on C2s, so Cadillac clearly isn't seeking performance right now.
Bottas is on his 18th lap on this run, his latest lap time was 1m43.615s.
There's the Cadillac on track earlier this morning.
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images
Bottas pits and goes onto a set of C1s – a compound we haven't seen much this week. Only seven teams have selected it; the exceptions are Red Bull, Williams, Aston Martin and Alpine.
Only four teams have picked the C5 compound, largely the same: Williams, Aston Martin, Alpine and Cadillac.
Lap tally per team:
Mercedes 73 (Russell)
Williams 68 (Albon)
McLaren 65 (Norris)
Haas 60 (Bearman)
Alpine 52 (Colapinto)
Cadillac 48 (Bottas)
Red Bull 47 (Verstappen)
Aston Martin 40 (Alonso)
Audi 25 (Bortoleto)
Racing Bulls 25 (Lawson)
Ferrari 5 (Hamilton)
"As the only team who missed the Barcelona shakedown, is Williams now the only team who has not had any reliability problems in Bahrain (so far)?" paulmjohnson asks.
A good question, so let's look at how much ground teams have covered.
Williams topped the mileage charts last week with 422 laps – as many as McLaren, one more than Ferrari.
McLaren is on 194 so far this week, Williams on 180, so a close second.
Here we go with the usual end-of-session tests, with the red flag being waved.
Green light. Russell, Bearman, Hamilton and Norris take to the track, with a race start simulation incoming.
This is the first time we've seen the Ferrari on track in the last 3.5 hours.
An extra formation lap will be performed before the start sequence.
Lights out, and the McLaren needed a few seconds to actually get away!
Testing will resume at 3pm local time – 50 minutes from now.
Here is some top-speed data from this morning.
Gabriel Bortoleto – Audi – 337.2km/h
Oliver Bearman – Haas – 326.4km/h
George Russell – Mercedes – 326.1km/h
Lando Norris – McLaren – 325.4km/h
Franco Colapinto – Alpine – 321.3km/h
Alexander Albon – Williams – 320.6km/h
Liam Lawson – Racing Bulls – 320.6km/h
Max Verstappen – Red Bull – 314.5km/h
Valtteri Bottas – Cadillac – 312.9km/h
Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin – 302.3km/h
There's Ferrari's remarkable rear wing up close:
There are no stupid questions, tpherson! In our table, PIT is the number of times each driver has gone through the pitlane.
"An interesting air-brake Ferrari have there, are movable devices allowed to aid braking in Formula 1?" barnet asks.
As far as we're aware, there's not reason to believe this wing breaches the technical rules regarding active aerodynamics (a.k.a. movable devices).
Here we go again!
Hamilton goes straight out of the pits.
The Briton improves to a 1m39.423s, which is far from the SF-26's potential.
Meanwhile, Ferrari has reverted to a conventional rear wing...
There's a first time for Hulkenberg today, a 1m35.864s on the C2 tyre. That's just six tenths slower than Bortoleto this morning.
No fewer than seven cars on track right now, but nobody lapping very competitively.
Antonelli is up to fourth in 1m34.523s, four tenths off team-mate Russell.
Max Verstappen goes fastest!
Verstappen outpaced Norris' benchmark by a mere 0.009s, that's a 1m33.444s. He's on the prototype tyres.
About three laps ago, Hamilton was a few seconds behind Alonso's Aston Martin. Within one lap, he'd passed the green machine – now, he's well clear. The AMR26 sounds impressive with its rasping roar and machine-gun off-throttle overrun, but its bark is very much worse than its bite – at Turn 11, it's visibly slower than others here.
Interestingly, when setting the quickest lap of the week so far, Verstappen was fastest in the first sector but didn't improve on his personal references in the latter two.
Hulkenberg is up to fifth, 1m34.684s, with C3 tyres. Audi is well clear of the rest of the midfield – for now.
Again, no sign of Cadillac on track since the session restarted. This has been a common theme this week.
There's a personal best for Hamilton, but it's just a 1m38.316s, so he remains down the order.
Lap tally per team:
Mercedes 95 (Russell 77, Antonelli 18)
McLaren 82 (Norris 72, Piastri 10)
Haas 78 (Bearman 69, Ocon 9)
Williams 71 (Albon)
Red Bull 68 (Verstappen)
Alpine 60 (Colapinto)
Cadillac 58 (Bottas)
Aston Martin 65 (Alonso)
Racing Bulls 48 (Lawson)
Audi 42 (Bortoleto 29, Hulkenberg 13)
Ferrari 27 (Hamilton)
It's not just Cadillac that has been in the garage since testing resumed; we're yet to see Albon's Williams back in action.
Alonso's Aston has stopped on track.
Alonso exits the AMR26. Red flag.
By: Autosport Staff
