Bahrain Test Day 2: Bottas finishes on top, Honda makes gains

The big story Wednesday on the final day of the Bahrain in-season Formula 1 test testing at Bahrain wasn't that Valtteri Bottas edged out Sebastian Vettel, that was a given because the Aldo Costa designed Mercedes remains the fastest car in F1.

The big story was McLaren and Honda, which we will get to shortly.

Bottas set his best lap of 1m31.280s in the final hour as the sun went down and the asphalt cooled.

Vettel to set the second best time of 1m31.574s but his day was interrupted by several issues with the car.

Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz Jr ended the day third fastest, but it was Stoffel Vandoorne and McLaren that had a really good day.

For the first time of the year McLaren and Honda had a trouble-free day of testing. Is it going to snow in the desert tonight?

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier called it the "best day" of testing that the team had enjoyed so far this year.

Vandoorne was able to set a lap of 1m32.108s – just eight tenths off Bottas's best lap of the day, and completed 81 laps – well over a race distance.

WEDNESDAY TEST TIMES:

POS DRIVER CAR TIME GAP LAPS
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes/Mercedes 1m31.280s 0.000s 143
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari/Ferrari 1m31.574s 0.294s 64
3 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1m31.884s 0.604s 68
4 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Honda 1m32.108s 0.828s 81
5 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m32.120s 0.840s 88
6 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m32.142s 0.862s 60
7 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Renault 1m32.213s 0.933s 61
8 Gary Paffett Williams/Mercedes 1m32.253s 0.973s 126
9 Sergey Sirotkin Renault/Renault 1m32.287s 1.007s 90
10 Pierre Gasly Red Bull/Renault 1m32.568s 1.288s 65
11 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber/Ferrari 1m34.462s 3.182s 91
12 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m35.015s 3.735s 70

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