F1 Bahrain pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 6

It seems to be my day for catty WA messages from sundry acquaintances.

"You have outed yourself as a ponce, not just for buying posh tea, but also for buying posh loose-leaf tea rather than teabags..."

Well, loose-leaf tea can go in the wormery, you fool, whereas most teabags actually have enough plastic in to make them non-biodegradable. You don't want the worms to choke on plastic, do you?

COMING UP SMELLING OF ROSAS

Well – the cheek of it! Aston Martin might have cancelled Pedro de la Rosa's press call, but the poor lamb was obviously itching to speak to someone, and he was intercepted while in this mode by the industrious Lawrence Barretto of F1 TV.

"Yes, yesterday we had some battery issues on Fernando's car, and therefore, you know, Honda is carrying out test simulations in the test bench in Sakura.

"Due to this fact, and also the fact that we have a shortage of parts, we will be doing very limited runs today. They will be short, and they will be separated by a minimum of half an hour, so that will allow us to really look into the data and be able to test some things in these few runs.

"But yeah, we won't be doing long runs today, for sure."

So just a couple of crumbs more information than Honda shared on X-formerly-known-as-Twitter earlier.

Life is too short to drink cheap tea, of course.

'mattpallot' speaks their brains: "If the gap between the top 4 and the midfield has closed as much as it has in the last two days (from 1.5 to 2 secs down to around, and sometimes under a second), does that mean that the midfield were sandbagging for the last 2 weeks and the frontrunners weren't? Seems like an odd way around, or it means there's tonnes more to come from the top 4..."

This is testing, so it's very much a case of reading the tea leaves. And, given the state of affairs with the new regs, like reading a mixture of tea leaves from various different brands. Some like the posh stuff I got from Ocado the other week, some like the ghastly ersatz sawdust you might procure in a bargain supermarket.

Another returnee to the circuit. It is he – Leclerc! On scrubbed mediums. Ferrari still leading the lap count, 52 now.

Hulkenberg also returning to action in the Audi, bringing the team's total laps past 42 for the day. The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?

But I digress. I continue to be fascinated by the Audi's sidepod treatment. Certainly one way to manage the wake turbulence from the front wheels, and narrowing those sidepods has created a huge space in that area.

Hadjar back out on track on a new set of mediums. It may not be for long, though, as a panning shot on F1 TV reveals flow-viz paint on the underside of the monocoque – around the driver's left thigh area.

Dear readers, please be upstanding and give a small round of applause as Cadillac reaches double figures in terms of lap count. Perez has just clocked up his 13th of the day. Lucky for some!

'hopkinsonfrank' asks: "You said they were going to do a start at the end of the afternoon session. Will they do one at the end of the morning session too? The ones from yesterday were hilarious and reminiscent of the junior pedal car races at the Goodwood Revival, when some children are really keen and race off to impress mummy and daddy while some at the back just went through the motions because they couldn't be arsed."

Very droll. And yes, there will be a practice start at the end of the morning session as well. The FIA confirmed this yesterday via a rather more useful WA message than the one I reported earlier.

In-car footage shows the engine was running as Antonelli coasted to a halt, but it sounded more like a 1970s two-stroke motorcycle with an illegal exhaust.

And Ocon pits immediately after one lap. Clearly another systems check. He's done 26 laps overall today.

Piastri now 13 laps into a stint on mediums – total of 19 so far today. His last lap was 1m40.362s.

Ocon back out, on proper tyres this time (scrubbed mediums). He did a launch test at the pit exit, but it didn't look like he was giving it the full beans.

Lindblad, meanwhile, is out for another stint on hards after completing 14 laps on the previous set.

Leclerc has binned off those hards after 15 laps and is back out on a new set of mediums. 1m37.827s last time around; the F1 TV feed has cut to him in anticipation of fireworks but our live sector times are all yellow, so the director may be disappointed.

Aston Martin watchers will also be devastated to learn that the team has cancelled its press conference with Pedro de la Rosa today. We were yearning to share the insights from that with you.

'cjewell' asks: "Any update on the - apparently - continued woes at Aston Martin?"

Yes, Honda Racing's X-formerly-known-as-Twitter account has announced that "Our last run with Fernando Alonso yesterday showed a battery-related issue" – ie when his car conked out.

They say that owing to "a shortage of power unit parts", they have "adapted today's run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints."

In Leclerc race sim news, he did 12 laps on those mediums and then swapped to hards. He's now nine laps into that stint, 1m38.581s last time.

Lindblad also on a race sim, 13 laps into a stint on hards – 1m41.154s last time round.

And he calls it a day after 14 laps.

'PetersonFan' says: "Could we see a return to 70s/80s style races where reliability comes into play ? And some cars are lapped multiple times ? Does the 107% rule still exist ?"

Well this could end up being a thing, especially in the early races. Remember 1981-83, when it felt like there was a turbo car blowing up more or less every lap? In this case it will more likely be some sort of electronic snafu within the hybrid system; the Honda PU, for instance, seems to have been eating its Energy Stores during testing.

It would be interesting – probably not desirable from a spectacle point of view – if cars were finishing multiple laps down. To pluck just one random example from history, in Belgium in 1965 only two cars finished on the lead lap. Third-placed Bruce McLaren was a lap down, Lorenzo Bandini in ninth was two laps down... The leaders? The peerless Jim Clark of course, 40-odd seconds ahead of Jackie Stewart.

And, yes, the 107% rule still exists. It was brought back when that clutch of new teams joined the grid at the turn of the last decade, and some of them were embarrassingly slow. But I can't think of a recent example of someone actually being barred from starting – usually they're granted an exemption owing to extenuating circumstances. It's been a long time since anyone was regularly that slow.

Leclerc is now 10 laps into a race simulation for Ferrari. Last time around was in the 1m39s bracket – so, like Hamilton yesterday, not triggering attention via laptimes.

Ocon enjoying himself destroying those inters now, lighting up the rear axle and laying down a phat line of spent rubber.

THE DARK LORD OF NORDEN

WhatsApp message from a former colleague: "Amusing and typically abstruse and recherche as your reference to Denis Norden was, a swift Google (an operation many of your no-doubt long-suffering readers will have had to perform) reveals he died in 2018 and is therefore no longer available."

Eh, keep your hair on...

HAAS DEBATE

Slightly bizarre scenes as our timing system indicates Ocon has gone out on intermediates. Just as we're about to start hitting screens, switching off and then switching on again etc, the trackside TV footage cuts to the Haas circulating on the green-walled tyres.

Ah, just the front wing dropping on the back straight (twixt Turns 10 and 11). Looks like a system test for poor weather, when only the front wing will be defeated when active aero is deployed.

Very few drivers essaying more than a handful of laps in any one stint so far this morning. The only long run so far is 11 laps on mediums by Antonelli (best time 1m33.916s).

Lindblad back out on track – just him, Antonelli, Ocon and Hulkenberg circulating at the moment. Arvid has completed the most laps of the day so far (17).

Least laps completed: Cadillac (1) unless you count Aston Martin (0).

Lots of phrases joining the F1 lexicon this season – 'super clipping', 'straightline mode' etc.

Meanwhile over on Motorsport.com, 'Gadoguz94' has activated 'Whataboutery mode'...

"I'm sorry, 'sense has prevailed'

"You seriously have the gall to call this sense when 4 out of 5 manufacturers didn't see it coming but Ferrari have and acted on it, even warned everyone.. Compression shennanigans [sic] on the other hand are fine because Merc is the one team?

"Where was the sense when Merc got the rules changed mid season multiple times before, most recently with the TD039 in 2022.?

"Can you people at Motorsport be any more obvious in your Mercedes bias?"

Calm down, sir! This is a safety issue - cars potentially travelling at vastly different speeds at that point in a race is a major no-no if it can sensibly be avoided. Note the deaths of Ronnie Peterson and Riccardo Paletti, to cite just two examples. Some issues really do transcend the politics of competitive advantage.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm taking a short break to polish the badge of my freebie E-Class...

THE POWER OF 12

Oh I nearly forgot – another matter arising from this week is that F1 will move to having 12 sprint weekends a year. Fans love them, apparently.

Do you love them? Do you? Polite answers only (if you can) in the comments...

DON'T PANIC, MR MAINWARING

F1 boss Stefano Domenicali – aka 'Steve Sunday' – gave a press briefing yesterday. Among the matters arising was that nobody should get themselves in a panic or or such kerfuffle over the new regs.

Did you get that? DON'T PANIC – IT'LL BE ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT

As I wrote yesterday in a column for the next issue of Autosport, if that's the messaging then perhaps we should invite Denis Norden to the Australian GP and get him to start the race by waving his famous red clipboard...

After 20-odd minutes of running we've now seen all the teams on track in some way, shape or form – except one. Can you guess which, readers?

Well, no sooner had we said that than Charles Leclerc pops out of the pits on mediums and starts leaning on his Ferrari – enough to have an oversteer moment at Turn 11 requiring a "dab of oppo".

1m33.837s for Charles.

Regular Autosport commenter 'Silverstone Guy' says: "Hopefully today we shall see a few showboat laps: low fuel, adjusted tyre pressures, engine turned up.

"Normally the big teams need not bother to reveal their hand, but it can excite mid-tier squads going into the final pre-race stretch."

I should coco. All this sandbagging and subterfuge is becoming rather wearing.

Lindblad also did six laps in his most recent stint. He got at least one push lap in – 1m36.609s – but he was on the hards, so it really looks like this is more a case of experimenting to find an optimum harvesting/deployment strategy.

Hadjar now leaving the pits again. Piastri now joining him on track as Perez returns to the pitlane in the Cadillac.

Perez now out in the Cadillac with a pair of aero rakes on the back end. Just him and Lindblad on the track at the moment.

Hadjar has broken for the pits after a six-lap stint on mediums with a best time of 1m35.011s, which is the fastest so far.

Lindblad has a massive lock-up on the front-left as he brakes for Turn 1, and the Racing Bulls plunges into the run-off area. A substantial flat-spot on that tyre as he emerges.

Lots of aero work going on; Gasly's Alpine is bedecked in pitot arrays and he's just come into the pits for a change of front wing. Antonelli also in – the Merc is being slathered in flow-viz paint.

Ocon, Leclerc, Antonelli, Hulkenberg and Gasly also out on track, Carlos Sainz has been out on an installation lap and then returned to the pits.

We have a mixture of hard Pirellis (Lindblad, Ocon, Hulkenberg) with the rest on mediums.