Max Verstappen dominated the opening day of pre-season testing for the 2024 Formula 1 season in Bahrain, lapping over a second quicker than his nearest competitor.
The reigning World Champion had fronted the times in the morning session, but McLaren’s Lando Norris emerged to pip the Dutchman by 0.064s early in the afternoon.
However, Verstappen re-established his authority when he went quickest through all three sectors to post a 1:31.662s, beating Norris’ previous benchmark by 0.882s.
And the three-time F1 title winner extended his advantage even further in the closing 30 minutes, shaving another three-tenths off to move 1.140s ahead of his closest rival.
Although times are largely redundant in testing, the Red Bull driver also made use of spending the entire day behind the wheel of the RB20, logging a mammoth 142 laps.
Norris remained second as sunlight was traded for darkness, with Carlos Sainz, who will leave Ferrari at the end of this season, winding up third overall on the timesheets.
Charles Leclerc’s earlier time remained good enough for seventh, with the Ferrari drivers split by RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who made a late improvement up the order, and the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll.
All three of those drivers featured in the afternoon session, with Ricciardo lapping 1.5 seconds faster than his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, who languished in 13th place.
After Leclerc came Fernando Alonso in the second Aston Martin and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, both of whom also switched places with the other driver at the break.
Following a subdued campaign last term, Sauber is bidding to make progress this season and Guanyu Zhou ensured the Swiss outfit ended up situated inside the top 10.
Zhou improved upon Valtteri Bottas’ best effort of 1:34.431s from the morning session by half-a-second to place 10th on the timing tower, just 0.011s ahead of Sargeant’s time.
But Sargeant, who is embarking upon his sophomore F1 campaign, endured an excursion through the gravel when he caught a bump at Turn 9 and pitched into a spin.
Sargeant’s track time was curtailed when he had to limp back to the pits for checks, having lost mileage after Alex Albon ground to a halt earlier with a fuel pump problem.
Mercedes sustained a muted day with George Russell not setting a competitive time and ended up down in 12th with a 1:34.109s, almost three seconds down. But the Briton did accrue a sizeable 120 laps.
Haas enter the latest season braced for a challenging beginning and its drivers occupied the bottom two places, over four seconds off Verstappen’s pace-setting time.
During the final 15 minutes, Nico Hulkenberg made contact with Stroll’s left-wing mirror which had become dislodged from his Aston Martin AMR24 car on the main straight.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes were the only two drivers not to turn a lap but will sample their respective new machines in Sakhir tomorrow morning.
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