Max Verstappen Wraps Up Bahrain F1 Testing With Fastest Lap of 2022 While Mercedes Showcases Struggle

After witnessing F1 drivers pushing their fastest lap times up to the 1m 30s mark over the past couple of days, Max Verstappen managed to crush them all on the final day of testing, securing the fastest lap with a 1:31:720. Behind the benchmark-setter, Charles Leclerc yet again wound up in the second position, just over 0.6s off of Verstappen.

Hence, all in all, a positive day for both Red Bull and Ferrari while defending champions, Mercedes, are looking far from where they would have wanted to be on this final testing day. The fastest driver of the two was George Russell who secured P4 behind Fernando Alonso.

How the morning F1 session unfolded

Sergio Perez shined over the day’s first half, slotting his Red Bull right on top of the timesheets with a 1:33:105. The margin between the Mexican and the rest of the grid was quite substantial as the new side pod and floor designs seem to work like a charm.

Behind Perez, it was the rookie Guanyu Zhou securing the second-fastest lap but over 0.8s slower than Perez. Nonetheless, the Chinese driver put together a total of 82 laps as opposed to Perez’s 43 closing out a rather busy morning for Alfa Romeo. Then arrived Pierre Gasly, who almost hit the three-figure mark within the morning session itself, completing 92 laps in total.

As for this day, the lap times don’t really matter as most of the teams stuck to long runs and hardly ever tested the limits of their cars. Hence, the pace differences between each of the teams were a bit too erratic; for instance, Kevin Magnussen, who set the fastest lap of day 2, only managed to secure P10 with his best lap time over five seconds slower than Perez.

Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, clinched P9 after a long day’s running of 78 laps.

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How the afternoon session unfolded

Massive rush on the track throughout the day as expected which got even worse following the lunch break. The desperation was quite evident as drivers hardly made it back to the garage over the entire four hours. And the only times they had to step out of the track were during red flags.

Valtteri Bottas interrupted the session by parking his Alfa Romeo on the track, barely seconds after setting his personal best lap of the day. Prior to Bottas’ late-mishap, it was Mick Schumacher who brought out the red flags for the first time in the afternoon as the German spun around the exit of the final corner.

Well, the pre-season testing has officially come to an end although Haas is still busy making up for the lost time from early on in the testing by gaining an extra couple of hours of running. So, with barely a week to go for the first lights out of this year, what kind of surprises are in store for the F1 fans?

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