Max Verstappen finished the first day of F1 testing in Bahrain more than a second faster than the other participants, and although he is still testing, it is fair to say that he seemed to be getting used to the RB20 from the off.
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Bahrain's Max Verstappen finishes in first place on day one
Following a busy morning session in which Max Verstappen topped the timesheets, the Red Bull driver remained in the car in the afternoon session, with most teams opting to change drivers later in the day.
Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg, Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz, Logan Sargent, Lance Stroll and Guanyu Chou all replaced their respective teammates in the afternoon session, with George Russell was the only other driver to complete a full day of practice. Mercedes Bahrain.
McLaren driver Norris wore a tribute helmet in the colors of former McLaren sports director and Indy 500 winner Gilles de Ferran, who sadly passed away just after Christmas.
After the first hour, Norris was third overall on C3 tires, 0.544s off Verstappen's benchmark, with Ferrari driver Sainz within just 0.036s of the top spot.
In the afternoon and evening, the sun can be seen setting over Sakhir, the temperature of the road surface will drop, and eventually the floodlights will be turned on.
These conditions will result in faster times if drivers choose to push harder over the full lap. Norris, on his 16th Tour visit to the circuit midway through the session, clocked a time of 1 minute 32.484 seconds, putting him 0.064 seconds clear of Verstappen. .
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But 15 minutes later, with Flowbiz paint on his rear wing, Verstappen took his first flying run of the session and was comfortably faster than Norris, and about eight-tenths of a second faster than any other rider on C3 tires along the way. .
After Alex Albon stopped late in the morning session, teammate Sargent spun in the tricky braking zone of Turns 9 and 10, losing his rear end and spinning 360 degrees, but the American was unharmed. I was able to crawl through the gravel traps in the run-off area and continue running even though my tires were worn out.
Elsewhere, Ricciardo moved his RB into fourth with just over 90 minutes left before the floodlights came on, but was 1.2 seconds off Verstappen's benchmark.
However, another problem arose for Sargent, as he heard what sounded like a problem with his gearbox, and when he upshifted out of Turn 8, he heard what sounded like an internal problem with his FW46. He made the wise move and trudged back to the pit lane, but this limited his running for much of the afternoon and evening, shortly after Williams admitted there was a problem with the driveshaft.
This left Williams as the only team at the end of the day without more than 100 laps, but it was still a day of reliable driving across the grid and they managed to cover more than the race distance.
Verstappen changed to fresh tires with 30 minutes remaining and took to the cooler track to shave an additional three-thousands off his fastest time, clocking a one-second improvement over the remaining time.
The actual lap time itself is fairly unimportant at this stage given the amount of work that still needs to be done over the next two days of running in Bahrain and the amount of sandbag work that will be done between the teams.
But that said, Verstappen's headline time was still an attention-grabbing time at the end of the first day of pre-season testing.
F1 Test 2024: Day 1 Leaderboard
[All quickest times set on C3 tyres unless stated]
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 1:31.344 143 laps
2 Lando Norris McLaren +1.140 73 laps
3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +1.240 69 laps
4 Daniel Ricciardo RB +1.255 52 laps
5 Pierre Gasly Alpine +1.461 61 laps
6 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.663 54 laps
7 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +1.903 64 laps
8 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +2.041 77 laps
9 Oscar Piastri McLaren +2.314 57 laps
10 Zhou Guanyu Kick Sauber +2.527 63 laps
11 Logan Sargent Williams +2.538 21 laps
12 George Russell Mercedes +2.765 122 laps
13 Hiroki Tsunoda RB +2.792 64 laps
14 Valtteri Bottas Kick Sauber +3.087 68 laps
15 Alexander Albon Williams +3.243 40 laps [C4 tyres]
16 Esteban OCON Alpine +3.333 60 laps [C1 tyres]
17 Kevin Magnussen Haas +4.348 66 laps
18 Nico Hulkenberg Haas +4.562 82 laps
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