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