Russell fastest for Mercedes on final day of Formula One testing

George Russell wrapped up Formula One’s third and final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain with Mercedes on top after he went faster than reigning world champion Max Verstappen in the closing minutes on Friday.

The Briton completed 91 laps and set the day’s best time around the floodlit Sakhir circuit of one minute 29.545 seconds.

The time was slower than the 1:29.348 recorded by Williams’ Carlos Sainz on Thursday. The Spaniard’s teammate Alex Albon was third fastest on Friday, 0.105 off Russell’s pace after a massive 137 laps.

Four times world champion Verstappen did a full day and ended up 0.021 off Russell’s pace.

Australian Oscar Piastri was fourth for champions McLaren, who have done a good job of staying under the radar by showing flashes of speed but aborting laps that could have put them up in lights.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fastest in a four-hour morning session bizarrely interrupted by a pane of glass falling out of the starter’s box and shattering on the track.

That was followed by another red flag in the afternoon when a bus appeared on the run-off area as some cars were on the track.

Seven times world champion Hamilton was sixth overall for Ferrari, behind Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in fifth. Mercedes’ 18-year-old Italian rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli was second in the morning, 0.077 slower than Leclerc’s best lap of one minute 30.811 seconds, but dropped down to 10th overall at the end.

“It’s hard to know what fuel loads everyone is running, as we’re all doing our own different programmes, so you have to take everything with a pinch of salt,” said Hamilton of what he had seen so far.

“McLaren won the constructors’ last year. We expect them to be one of the quickest, if not the quickest, as with Red Bull, who dominated for many, many years.”

Aston Martin had a day of changes, with Lance Stroll initially reported unwell for the morning session and Fernando Alonso driving instead.

The Canadian returned for the afternoon but then felt unwell again after 34 laps and Alonso stepped back in for the final hour.

“Initial feedback from Lance and Fernando suggests we have made progress with the driveability of the car, but we have also discovered areas that could be better and need more focus,” said team principal Andy Cowell. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)

Agencies