F1 test: Sainz and Ferrari lead a Friday with many breakdowns

After a morning of problems and red flags, the 2022 F1 cars returned to the tarmac of the Sakhir International Circuit to complete the final four hours of the afternoon session on this penultimate day of pre-season.

Although it is true that the afternoon started calmer, as the timer went down, some problems and breakdowns arose in different single-seaters. Two red flags caused by Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris respectively after their cars stopped on track stopped the session for a long period of time.

At the end of the day, Carlos Sainz and Ferrari led the time table with the C4 tire and a time of 1:33.532 . In addition, the Spanish driver reached 60 laps, which added to the 54 laps of Charles Leclerc (6th) in the morning session, confirm the good feelings both in reliability and speed of the Maranello team.

The current world champion, Max Verstappen, marked a 1:34.011 that served him to place second with the C4. The Dutch driver was able to enjoy the RB18 throughout the day and completed more than 80 laps after Sergio Pérez was at the wheel of the Red Bull car on the first day of testing in Bahrain.

Lance Stroll stood out in third position, although his time was half a second slower than Sainz ‘s. However, the good news for Aston Martin was the Canadian driver’s 70 laps after the problems suffered by Sebastian Vettel (8th) a few hours earlier.

Behind, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes continued to hide their potential, with a best attempt that left him +0.606s (C5) away from the best time of the day set by Ferrari . In the morning session, George Russell was in charge of piloting the W13, but they did not look for times as reflected in his 1:38.585. Between them, the German team reached 114 laps and collected more information about this radical new “without sidepods” concept.

After a quiet morning in which they managed to dominate the time table, Esteban Ocon and Alpine were affected by a new failure in the Renault power unit of the A522, however, the French finished in fifth position with a 1:34.276 . Of course, the doubts continue in the absence of only one day to conclude the F1 2022 preseason.

Lando Norris , the protagonist of the second red flag of the afternoon when he was about to leave the pits, set a 1:34.609 with a C3 tire that served him to finish in seventh place. The Briton returned to complete the entire day for the second day in a row because his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, was still unwell.

Kevin Magnussen returned to the Haas wheel to finish ninth in the timesheets, ahead of Mick Schumacher who finished 12th. Between both drivers, the American team was able to complete more than 60 laps, being one of the most positive days of the structure in this F1 2022 preseason.

AlphaTauri finished in tenth position with a Yuki Tsunoda who exceeded 120 laps in a very productive day for those from Faenza, while Alfa Romeo shared the day between its two drivers; Valtteri Bottas was 11th with a 1:36.987 and Guanyu Zhou closed the times (1:39.984).

Williams experienced its worst day of preseason on this second day of testing in Bahrain, with a Nicholas Latifi who could only do 14 laps before his car caught fire due to a problem with the rear suspensions of his car that caused a fairly large fire , needing the help of the track marshals who had to put it out with fire extinguishers.

* Update

After the afternoon session was over, Haas was able to continue on the track for a further hour due to a delay in his flight on his way to Bahrain. In those extra 60 minutes, Kevin Magnussen bettered Carlos Sainz’s best time with a 1:33.207 and finished first in the time table.

Times of the second day of F1 test 2022 in Bahrain (with Magnussen)

	Pilot	Equipment	laps	Time (tyre)
1	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	60	1’33 “207
1	Carlos Sainz	ferrari	60	1’33″532
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	86	1’34″011
3	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	70	1’34″064
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	47	1’34″141
5	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	111	1’34″276
6	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	54	1’34″366
7	Lando Norris	McLaren	60	1’34″609
8	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	46	1’36″020
Ten	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	120	1’36 “802
11	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	25	1’36″987
12	Mick Schumacher	Haas	23	1’37″846
13	George Russell	Mercedes	67	1’38″585
14	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	12	1’39″845
15	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	48	1’39″984