Nyck de Vries kicked off the opening day of the second Formula 2 pre-season test at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit with the fastest lap, as the Prema Theodore Racing driver posted a best time of 1:43.785 during the afternoon session.
De Vries headed Charouz Racing System’s Louis Delétraz, 0.120s adrift in second and Campos Vexatec's Luca Ghiotto, a further 0.137s back in third.
The morning session saw temperatures hit the 27C mark, rising slightly in the afternoon with a peak of 30C. MP Motorsport’s Roberto Merhi was first out as the circuit went green, switfly followed by the rest of the field which spent much of the opening hour logging installation laps until Ghiotto set the first flying lap inside the 1:44s.
The Italian then bested his time by 0.7 seconds after the halfway point of the session, putting him out of reach from countryman Antonio Fuoco, which remained the benchmark throughout the remainder of the morning having been set on medium compound tyres.
The second half of the session was considerably more stop-start than the first, a red flag for Alexander Albon’s stranded DAMS car at turn 13 preceded another stoppage for Trident’s Arjun Maini who stopped on the start/finish straight with half an hour remaining on the clock.
There was a third red flag in the morning with ten minutes left on the clock before lunch as DAMS Nicholas Latifi ground to a halt
Ghiotto therefore remained quickest at lunch followed by Fuoco and Delétraz as Maximilian Günther grabbed fourth ahead of Russian Time's Artem Markelov.
With lunch over the drivers headed back out, but there was little improvement on the timing screens until the final hour of the afternoon session when a flurry of activity saw Arjun Maini and the Carlins of Lando Norris and Sergio Sette Camara move toward the top, although they were unable to challenge Delétraz.
However in the final ten minutes, de Vries moved to the top of the timing sheets, demoting Delétraz to second, to post the overall quickest lap. Norris claimed third in the afternoon, fourth overall ahead of Maini, as Fuoco hung onto fifth.
Markelov brought out the only red flag of the afternoon, coming to a halt at Turn 8 before managing to get going again.
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