Leclerc leads Antonelli and Piastri on final morning of second Bahrain test

Charles Leclerc posted the fastest time as pre-season testing continued at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday, slotting ahead of Kimi Antonelli and Oscar Piastri in the morning session.

Leclerc worked his way down to a best time of 1m 33.689s across four hours of running in typically hot weather conditions, putting him just over two-tenths up on Antonelli and some six-tenths ahead of Piastri.

After Ferrari got the paddock talking with their exhaust winglet on Wednesday and ‘upside down’ rear wing on Thursday, the team’s positive test continued thanks to Leclerc charging through a race distance and gathering plenty more data.

Antonelli and Piastri, meanwhile, both lost some track time – the Mercedes stopping out on track due to a pneumatic issue and causing a red flag with a couple of hours left on the morning clock, and McLaren working on the rear of their car for around half an hour.

Haas’ Esteban Ocon was another busy driver, ticking off a race distance and more en route to fourth, with Isack Hadjar fifth in a solid morning for Red Bull, even if the Frenchman was seeing punching the air in frustration after going deep at Turn 8.

Pierre Gasly and Arvid Lindblad followed in sixth and seventh for Alpine and Racing Bulls respectively, the latter being praised by his race engineer during a longer run, ahead of Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Cadillac made a quiet start for the third successive day, with Sergio Perez short of mileage for opening 90 minutes or so, but their programme gradually ramped up and the Mexican ended the morning with a healthy number of laps to his name.

At the bottom of the list were Aston Martin, who suffered a stoppage with Fernando Alonso on Thursday afternoon and did not appear on Friday until the final 20 minutes of the morning session – the squad’s difficult pre-season continuing.

New power unit partner Honda issued a statement confirming that a battery-related issue halted Alonso, with checks back at their headquarters in Japan and a shortage of power unit parts meaning any runs from Stroll will be “very limited”.

Six teams will change their drivers over the lunch break, with Mercedes also fitting a new power unit following Antonelli’s stoppage, while Ferrari, Williams, Racing Bulls, Aston Martin and Alpine will stick with Leclerc, Sainz, Lindblad, Stroll and Gasly.