Formula 1 News: Norris nips Verstappen on morning of Bahrain testing – Day 2

Lando Norris set the fastest time so far of pre-season testing in Bahrain early on Thursday morning, driving the superior Rob Marshall designed McLaren MCL40. Norris had quickly got down to business with a run on the C4 compound, producing a lap of 1m33.453s – which was six thousandths of a second quicker than George Russell had managed on Wednesday.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Max Verstappen was 2nd fastest for Red Bull, 0.131s behind Norris in the superior McLaren. However, Verstappen was running the harder C3 compound to Norris on the C4.

Wednesday pacesetter George Russell focused more on race runs and was third fastest, 0.658s behind Norris. Russell topped the lap counter though, with a very impressive 77.

Alex Albon (C4) and Gabriel Bortoleto (C3) rounded out the top-5, while Haas’ Ollie Bearman (C3) completed the top six from Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

But while the top teams continued their preparations, with Max Verstappen just behind Norris on the time sheets, the intrigue in the pit lane was a radical active aero rear wing by Ferrari.

During some initial laps that Lewis Hamilton did on track, his rear wing was spotted flipping totally upside down when it went into straight mode.

You spin me right round! 😵‍💫

Here’s Ferrari’s innovative solution to moving the upper flap of the rear wing as part of this season’s active aero introduction 👀 #F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/yY0ZcI1Kph

— Formula 1 (@F1) February 19, 2026

The idea behind it will be to dramatically reduce drag on the straights compared to rival designs that typically open up to widen the slot gap. However, in our opinion this is a poor design that will result in many mechanical failures. It is inferior to Alpine’s solution of simply laying down the top element behind the lower element. This configuration results in the lowest possible drag and is an elegent design.

Bahrain Pre-season Testing Week 2, Day 2, Morning Times