F1 Testing Day 1: Leclerc tops morning times in Bahrain

It was Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc at the top of the timesheets at the lunch break on Day 1 of F1 preseason testing in Bahrain, much as he was in Barcelona. Ferrari were ever-present in and around the top of the timing sheets in pre-season running, and they have continued that trend here.

The Ferrari man setting his lap time of 1m34.531s on the C3 medium tires much earlier in the day when the track temps were cooler. The temperatures are absolutely scorching out there now, which isn’t necessarily an ingredient that leads to quick times.

Alex Albon was 2nd in the #23 Williams, but on softer C4 tires. Note the small sidepods, similar to the radical Mercedes

Sebastian Vettel was third for Aston Martin, on the same tires as Leclerc’s Ferrari, but 1.2s off the pace and out to lunch again this year it would appear.

Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin on hard tires

Sergio Perez in 4th for Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton in 5th for Mercedes were both sandbagging.

Day 1 Morning Times

Pos Driver Team Time Tire Laps
1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1m34.531s C3 64
2 Alex Albon Williams 1m35.070s C4 53
3 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1m35.706s C3 39
4 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1m36.247s C2 69
5 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m36.365s C3 62
6 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1m36.768s C2 42
7 Guanyu Zhou Alfa Romeo 1m38.164s C3 54
8 Lando Norris McLaren 1m37.580s C2 21
9 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1m37.888s C2 44

C1 tire the hardest, C5 the softest