Kimi Antonelli and George Russell topped the timing sheets as day three of pre-season testing in Bahrain drew to a close.
Russell finished the morning session fastest, setting a then-quickest 1:33.918. Antonelli — who is entering his second season in Formula One — posted a 1:33.669 in the afternoon session to set the fastest time across all three days of the test.
However, as ever with testing, true pace isn’t fully on show — and the so-called “Big Four” produced claims and counter-claims about whose pace was the one to watch.
Morning Session
The session started badly for Cadillac once more, as Valtteri Bottas brought out the first red flag of the day after completing only eight laps. The car came to a halt towards the end of the second sector and did not return to the track until two hours later.
Alongside setting the fastest time of the morning session, Russell also appeared to complete a full race simulation, with long runs and high fuel seemingly on the menu for many of the teams.
Joining Russell in the top three for the morning session were Lewis Hamilton with a 1:34.209 and Max Verstappen — running the new number 3 on his car — finishing third with a 1:35.341.
Afternoon Session
The afternoon session got off to a relatively slow start, with Sergio Perez at Cadillac and Esteban Ocon of Haas — both former team-mates at Force India — joining the fray, followed by Oscar Piastri.
With teams again seemingly focused on long runs, Antonelli — who had taken over from Russell — set the fastest time of the entire test. As the evening air set in, lap times began to fall, even during longer race runs.
It wasn’t until the day was wrapping up that most of the drama unfolded.
First, Isack Hadjar paid an unexpected visit to the Mercedes pit box. Shortly afterwards, Lewis Hamilton brought out the final red flag of the test with just ten minutes remaining.
As the day drew to a close, the cars lined up for practice starts — but Franco Colapinto ran into trouble. He lost control of his Alpine while warming up his tyres, ran onto the grass, and narrowly avoided the wall. On the run down to Turn One, something appeared to fail in the engine, leaving the car stranded on track to end the day.
Antonelli topped the timing sheets for the day, with Russell second and Hamilton third — around half a second behind the Mercedes duo.
Teams now have just under seven days to debrief and analyse the data gathered before Testing 2 begins next week on 18th February.
Feature image courtesy of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team