Max Verstappen ended the final day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain fastest for Red Bull, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Alpine driver Fernando Alonso completing the top three in the regular four-hour session.
Mick Schumacher later went second fastest on the C4 tyre, half a second down on Verstappen, in the two additional hours afforded to Haas at the end of the session to account for the track time it missed on Thursday due to its freight being delayed.
The nine fastest times on the final day were better than the previous benchmark, set by Kevin Magnussen in the extra hour given to Haas on Friday afternoon, with Verstappen’s best time of 1m31.720s coming in the final 10 minutes of the day.
That run beat his previous benchmark by a quarter of a second and also eclipsed Leclerc’s lap by 0.442 seconds, though there was a tyre offset between the two – with Verstappen on the softest C5 tyre and Leclerc on the C4 compound that is one step softer.
Alonso used the C4 tyres in the final five minutes of the session to sneak into the top three with a 1m32.698s lap, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell.
Valtteri Bottas was a strong fifth for Alfa Romeo, a second off the pace on the mid-range C3 tyre, which will be the softest compound available at next week’s Bahrain Grand Prix season opener.
He came to a stop out on track not long after that lap, however, which after a brief yellow-flag period then prompted a red flag.
Bottas was cruising by the time he started to head through Turns 6 and 7 and, though he managed to switch from fourth gear down to third and back to fourth again, he eventually pulled away from the track on the hill down to Turn 8 and stopped in fourth, hinting at a possible hydraulics issue.
The Alfa Romeo was retrieved in time for a final 30 minutes of running, in which Verstappen, Alonso and McLaren’s Lando Norris all improved their times.
Yuki Tsunoda was sixth for AlphaTauri ahead of morning pacesetter Sergio Perez, with Schumacher ending the standard four hours of running in eighth before his improvement in the two-hour extension.
Norris posted his fastest time in the final five minutes and was ninth, but McLaren’s morning in particular still largely comprised short runs that were punctuated by long gaps between on-track activity while the team grappled with brakes issues.
Sebastian Vettel was the faster of Aston Martin’s two drivers and rounded out the top 10, ahead of Zhou Guanyu – whose 82 laps combined with Bottas’s 68 put Alfa Romeo at the top of the mileage charts on the final day.
Morning runners Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz were 12th and 13th for AlphaTauri and Ferrari respectively, with Williams duo Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi 14th and 15th.
Albon had a short run in the car at the start of the afternoon, before handing back over to Latifi – who lost the majority of his day of running to a fire on Friday morning.
The pair completed 142 laps between them, the fourth-highest Saturday total.
Day three times
1. Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m31.720s, C5, 53 laps
2. Schumacher (Haas) 1m32.241s, C4, 85 laps*
3. Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m32.415s, C4, 51 laps
4. Alonso (Alpine) 1m32.698s, C4, 122 laps
5. Russell (Mercedes) 1m32.759s, C5, 71 laps
6. Bottas (Alfa Romeo) 1m32.985s, C3, 68 laps
7. Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) 1m33.002s, C5, 57 laps
8. Perez (Red Bull) 1m33.105s, C4, 43 laps
9. Norris (McLaren) 1m33.191s, C3, 90 laps
10. Vettel (Aston Martin) 1m33.821s, C4, 81 laps
11. Zhou (Alfa Romeo) 1m33.959s, C4, 82 laps
12. Gasly (AlphaTauri) 1m34.865s, C4, 91 laps
13. Sainz (Ferrari) 1m34.905s, C5, 68 laps
14. Albon (Williams) 1m35.171s, C3, 18 laps
15. Latifi (Williams) 1m35.634s, C3, 124 laps
16. Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m36.029s, C3, 53 laps
17. Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m36.217s, C5, 78 laps
18. Magnussen (Haas) 1m38.616s, C2, 38 laps
*Schumacher’s best time in the regular four-hour session was a 1m33.151s on C3 tyres
