After Max Verstappen dominated yesterday, Charles Leclerc is leading the second day of Formula 1 testing in Sakhir after the morning session. The Monegasque driver was the second fastest with a time of 1m31s since the beginning of these tests.
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With medium tires on his Ferrari, Leclerc completed the best of the 36 laps he completed in 1m31.750s, finishing 0.578s ahead of Oscar Piastri (McLaren/Mercedes). At a certain point in the session, car #16 ran over a manhole cover while approaching turn 11, causing debris on the track and requiring red flags to be shown.
An inspection of the track was necessary, and after a delay of about 40 minutes, it was decided to end the morning session one hour earlier – compensating with an extra hour in the afternoon/evening.
Logan Sargeant (Williams/Mercedes) was third and the last driver within the same second as Leclerc, while Sergio Pérez made his debut with Red Bull with the fourth fastest time. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin/Mercedes) closed the top five ahead of Lewis Hamilton – thus starting his final pre-season with Mercedes. Also running in the morning were Guanyu Zhou (Kick Sauber/Ferrari), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Nico Hülkenberg (Haas/Ferrari), and Yuki Tsunoda (Visa Cash App RB F1 Team), occupying the positions from seventh to tenth, respectively.
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