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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There are no stupid questions, tpherson! In our table, PIT is the number of times each driver has gone through the pitlane.
There's Ferrari's remarkable rear wing up close:
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
Testing will resume at 3pm local time – 50 minutes from now.
Lights out, and the McLaren needed a few seconds to actually get away!
An extra formation lap will be performed before the start sequence.
This is the first time we've seen the Ferrari on track in the last 3.5 hours.
Green light. Russell, Bearman, Hamilton and Norris take to the track, with a race start simulation incoming.
Here we go with the usual end-of-session tests, with the red flag being waved.
"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.
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)
Only four teams have picked the C5 compound, largely the same: Williams, Aston Martin, Alpine and Cadillac.
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.
There's the Cadillac on track earlier this morning.
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images
Bottas is on his 18th lap on this run, his latest lap time was 1m43.615s.
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.
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 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.
We understand Ferrari's upside-down wing is a test item for now, rather than a permanent improvement.
Thanks Ed! It has been an interesting day so far, let's see what happens next.
And with that, that's my live commentary shifts done for the week. So let me take you across the English Channel where 'French Ben' is waiting in the wings!
'Lotus109' - yes, lots. Just because a car isn't on track, it doesn't mean there's nothing to do as mechanics will be working on the car, data can be analysed, meetings can be happen. There's always something to do...
As we approach the final hour, how about another lap count?
- Norris - 51
- Verstappen - 36
- Russell - 57
- Albon - 52
- Bearman - 46
- Colapinto - 45
- Bortoleto - 11
- Alonso - 29
- Lawson - 9
- Hamilton - 5
- Bottas - 25
Ferrari update
Hamilton has only done five laps this morning and has not been seen since the opening hour. It's understood that the problem actually lies on the chassis side, not power unit, and the plan is to go back out before lunch - so a minor issue, just in a place that's hard to reach meaning it takes time to fix.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
Lap count
- Norris - 41
- Verstappen - 36
- Russell - 49
- Albon - 52
- Bearman - 41
- Colapinto - 35
- Alonso - 25
- Bortoleto - 8
- Lawson - 8
- Hamilton - 5
- Bottas - 15
F1 has released a neat video on that Ferrari rear wing.
About time
We're now 2.5 hours into the session and Cadillac finally has its first official lap time on the board with a 1m41.664s for Bottas on the C3.
There's a lot of chatter about that Ferrari rear wing and yesterday we reported on some its upgrades.
Our man JBL called it a "nifty little tool" earlier, but "perhaps overegged" in terms of what advantage it could give.
Now the track is ramping up though, with only Bortoleto, Hamilton, Lawson and Bottas not out. The Cadillac driver still hasn't got an official time on the board, whereas we've still not seen Hamilton since the opening hour.
Anybody there?
We're now halfway through the session, but things are rather quiet with only Norris, Russell, Colapinto and Bottas out on track.
As you can see, 1h45m into the session and Cadillac has finally appeared with its grand prix winning veteran, Bottas.
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Lap count
- Norris - 22
- Verstappen - 26
- Russell - 34
- Albon - 31
- Bearman - 18
- Colapinto - 25
- Alonso - 18
- Bortoleto - 8
- Lawson - 8
- Hamilton - 5
- Bottas - 2
Speaking of Hamilton, it's been a tough few years for him as he struggled to adapt to the ground-effect cars. It was topped off with an incredibly disappointing debut campaign with Ferrari last year, but he is now much more confident for the season ahead.
“I generally feel in the best place that I've been in a long, long time with rearranging things within my team and then with the car."
There's a question about why so few laps for Ferrari, as Hamilton has been in his garage for much of the running now. It's understood that the Scuderia is currently making a power unit change and this follows limited running yesterday as well.
On Wednesday, a mechanical issue put the seven-time world champion out for well over an hour in the afternoon.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
Looks like drivers are mainly on longrun programmes right now, as Russell crosses the line with a 1m37s - approximately three-seconds off his fastest lap for the day.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
Norris still has the fastest lap, having set a 1m33.453s around 20 minutes ago. It leaves him 0.131s ahead of Verstappen in second with Albon (1m35.399s) currently rounding out the top three.
By: Autosport Staff
