2023 Bahrain F1 Test: Sainz leads Sargeant in Friday morning’s race

On a hot Friday morning, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen led the early race with a first representative time, a time of 1m33.710s on Pirelli’s mid-size C3 compound.

Sainz then took the lead with a performance of 1:32.653 minutes, which he later improved to 1:32.486 seconds in his Ferrari with C3 tires.

That meant the Spaniard was four tenths better than Max Verstappen’s benchmark on Thursday, while Ferrari continued to top the top speed charts.

Sainz’s compatriot Fernando Alonso soon joined him at the top after the Aston Martin driver posted a 1’33.278 and then a 1’33.182 at the same circuit.

Just before halfway through the morning session at 4.15am, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu separated the Spaniards by finishing second with a lap of 1m33.170s.

After disappearing into the garage for an hour to work on the front end, Alonso returned to reclaim the spot with a 1m32.969s on C2s.

Zhou’s morning was also mixed as the Chinese rider pitted for an extended period, limiting him to 43 laps.

Newcomer Sargeant was the last of the 10 morning runners to get a time on the board as the American continued to adjust to the Williams FW45.

In the final hour, he gradually moved up to second place with a 1’32.968, then set a late 1’32.549 to come within 0.063 of Sainz’s benchmark.

Behind Alonso and Zhou, Magnussen was next in fifth place, the Haas man was the last rider to stay within a second of the leader, followed by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

Friday morning was Sergio Perez’s first appearance as Red Bull were the only team not to split Thursday between their two drivers.

Making his Testing debut in 2023, Perez worked through many Testing tasks on a productive morning, as did teammate Verstappen on Thursday. The Mexican completed 76 laps, the best of which kept him in seventh place.

Lewis Hamilton had a cautious session for Mercedes, remaining in eighth place, while team boss Toto Wolff admitted to F1 TV that his W14 car had “got off balance” in the morning heat, circumstances relevant to the night of the Grand Prix of Bahrain are not representative qualifying and race.

The seven-time world champion returned to the garage for some minor repairs after being one of several cars to shed body panels.

Far behind the other runners, Lando Norris finished ninth for McLaren and appeared to struggle with the handling of a jerky MCL60.

Yuki Tsunoda was the productivity king on Friday morning, completing 85 mammoth laps as he finished bottom on the timesheets.

The smooth session allowed teams to rack up plenty of miles and help Pirelli with development work on C3 prototypes.

The only interruption came at the end: a virtual safety car, followed by a short red flag for a system test by race control.

This then led to two practice starts to complete the session. On the second start, Norris caused some excitement by stalling in front of Sainz, who had to swerve to avoid hitting the McLaren.

After a one-hour lunch break, testing resumes at 15:15 local time in Bahrain.