Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli set the pace in final practice for F1’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, as Mercedes recovered from its most difficult Friday of 2026 to lead the way with its heavily upgraded car.
Deputy team principal Bradley Lord said Mercedes conducted overnight simulator work to figure out why the upgrades had improved medium- and high-speed corner performance but at the expense of the low-speed turns, which he described as a previous strength of the car.
And it would seem that work was successful, as Antonelli became the first driver to lap below 1m37 seconds so far this weekend. On his second set of soft tyres he set a 1m36.302s best to end the session fastest.
Red Bull continued its strong practice form in FP3, with Max Verstappen second-fastest but almost three tenths down on Antonelli.
Verstappen’s team-mate Isack Hadjar backed that up with the third-fastest time. He complained of the recently upgraded RB22 being “so unpredictable” through Turns 1 and 9 early on, before ending the session 0.558s off the pace.
George Russell was only fourth in the other Mercedes, six tenths off Antonelli, while the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top six, seven tenths off the pace and separated by just 0.025s.
With track temperatures running in the mid-50s°C, the tyres were only good for a single flying lap and couldn’t produce better laptimes even after several cool-down laps or time in the pits.
McLaren struggled to extract performance from the soft compound in FP3 and ended up seventh and eighth, with Lando Norris setting his best lap on the medium (C3) tyre. He was eight tenths off the pace, while team-mate Oscar Piastri was a full second off Antonelli, having only found a tenth of a second going from medium to soft.
After a Friday spent solely focused on high-fuel long runs owing to a hefty grid penalty he faces for this race, Franco Colapinto led the way in the midfield for Alpine, 1.6s off the pace, ahead of Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls and the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto.
And Fernando Alonso indicated Aston Martin might be a Q2 threat at Sepang by setting the 12th-fastest time FP3, just over three tenths down on Colapinto’s Alpine and 0.018s up on Pierre Gasly’s.
Session results
1 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m36.302s
2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.278s
3 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) +0.558s
4 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.610s
5 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.714s
6 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.739s
7 Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.859s
8 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +1.064s
9 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.618s
10 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) +1.782s
11 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +1.902s
12 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.921s
13 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.939s
14 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.950s
15 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1.964s
16 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) +2.054s
17 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +2.390s
18 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +2.414s
19 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +2.509s
20 Alex Albon (Williams) +2.747s
21 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +3.629s
22 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +3.921s
from The Race https://ift.tt/NjZsAUq
No comments: