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Pierre Gasly topped the first day of Bahrain pre-season Formula 1 testing which Sergio Perez brought to a premature end when he spun his Red Bull in the final 10 minutes.
Understeer, lock-ups and more porpoising were the stories of the afternoon of the opening day of action and Gasly had all three through the afternoon.
He first jumped to the top of the order on the C5 tyre alongside a host of improving drivers just inside the final hour.
Leclerc’s time held up in second until the last 12 minutes, upon which his team-mate Carlos Sainz continued the Scuderia’s strong pre-season form by delivering second fastest, 0.172s off Gasly, on the C3 (medium) tyre.
Gasly also completed a century of laps with 103 for the day.
Behind Leclerc’s third place, Lance Stroll took the reins and matched his team-mate Sebastian Vettel’s morning position of third with another run inside the last hour on the soft tyre.
It wasn’t a straightforward final stint for Stroll though.
Fernando Alonso might have been much higher up the order than 12th at the end of the day had he made good on a rapid first sector in the final hour of running, before binning the lap for a scruffy middle sector.
He and Stroll then had a bizarre bout on track with just over 20 minutes to go, where neither wanted to cede track position until Stroll completed a move at Turn 4 before the track narrows.
Alex Albon’s morning time held up for fifth although he continued and racked up an impressive 104 laps over the day before a suspected rear-axle issue first diagnosed at the exit of Turn 4 halted progress.
Lando Norris jumped to sixth late on after a rollercoaster afternoon of incidents.
It’s not yet clear exactly what McLaren’s brake issue is, but it repeatedly hindered Norris as he went off at Turn 1 and at least twice at Turn 9/10 at various points later in the session.
Luckily he strung a decent lap together inside the last half-hour, but it was certainly a damp-squib of an opening day given the team’s form in Barcelona last time out.
Valtteri Bottas took over the Alfa Romeo in the afternoon and completed a good day for the Italian marque following a tricky Barcelona test.
He managed 66 laps to add to Zhou Guanyu’s 54 in the morning, and Bottas didn’t appear to go for a performance lap in the last hour making his seventh place seemingly respectable.
Behind Vettel’s morning lap holding ninth, George Russell jumped in the Mercedes and was ninth fastest in a day that was more impressive off track with talk of its new side pods than it was on track in terms of lap time.
Russel was another victim of lock-ups on key laps which probably hindered progress, but still notched 60 laps.
The top 10 was rounded out by Perez who spun at Turn 8 and brought out the red flag which ended the session six minutes early.
Haas got its test underway after being delayed this morning due to logistics. Pietro Fittipaldi was driving and was the slowest of the cars that recorded times, three seconds off the top spot but with 47 laps bagged.
There’s two more days of the Bahrain test remaining.
Day one times
1. Gasly (AlphaTauri) 1m33.902s, C5, 103 laps
2. Sainz (Ferrari) 1m34.359s, C3, 52 laps
3. Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m34.531s, C3, 64 laps
4. Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m34.736s, C4, 50 laps
5. Albon (Williams) 1m35.070s, C4, 104 laps
6. Norris (McLaren) 1m35.356s, C2, 50 laps
7. Bottas (Alfa Romeo) 1m35.495s, C3, 66 laps
8. Vettel (Aston Martin), 1m35.706s, C3, 39 laps
9. Russell (Mercedes) 1m35.941s, C3, 60 laps
10. Perez (Red Bull) 1m35.977s, C3, 138 laps
11. Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m36.365s, C3, 62 laps
12. Alonso (Alpine) 1m36.745s, C3, 24 laps
13. Ocon (Alpine) 1m36.768s, C2, 42 laps
14. Zhou (Alfa Romeo) 1m37.164s, C3, 54 laps
15. Fittipaldi (Haas) 1m37.422s, C2, 47 laps
