F1 Bahrain pre-season test - Day 3

Only 377 hours until lights-out at Melbourne. See you then!

Top-5s for today

In laps:
1) Albon (137 completed)
2) Ocon (103)
3) Russell (91)
4) Tsunoda (87)
5) Piastri (85)

Lap times:
1) Russell, 1:29.545
2) Verstappen, 1:29.566
3) Albon, 1:29.650
4) Piastri, 1:29.940
5) Gasly, 1:30.040

- LC

Practice starts to end the session. Alonso ducks out. Honestly don't blame the guy. - LC

With this final lap completed, Albon will have run about 2.4 full race distances of the Bahrain circuit today alone. I'm sure he will be feasting to make up for those calories tonight. - LC

5 minutes left until we wrap things up. Rock the vote:

Russell did return to the track sporting C3s for perhaps the whole of these last 8 minutes. Piastri also on track now.  - LC

(Originally wrote C1s because of the outdated graphic. Apologies.)

12 minutes to go in the session. Albon and Alonso join Gasly, Tsunoda, Ocon and the Hulk on track. Looks like Mercedes swapped tires on Russell's car, but waiting to see if he'll return to track. - LC

Did some math, against my general inclinations, and here are some Day 3 fastest-lap teammate gaps just for amusement:

Russell > Antonelli by .834
Piastri > Lando by 1.003
Hamilton > Leclerc by .466

(Sainz and Lawson didn't run, so Verstappen and Albon don't factor.)

— JW

Re: Lawson's hair. Giving me Kevin Bacon's "Footloose" hairstyle meets early 2000s' ski slope vibes. Apologies that it has nothing to do with the racing, but it's hard not to be immediately distracted by it as a whole. - LC

Want to have more to say on Albon's lockup just now, but again distracted by Lawson's hair when the feed cut to him. - LC

Ocon spins just before Turn 2. Recovers and back on track. - LC

Funny little moment in the pits as Verstappen nearly dipped into the Ferrari box, seemingly forgetting that Red Bull is back one farther. Old habits die hard. — JW

Alonso now joins the track, taking a very ill Stroll's place. Alonso is also not feeling well, so an all-around great testing day for Aston. - LC

Verstappen wrangles the RB-21 (wearing C3s) back into the fastest lap, though ran a bit wide in sector 2 and would've had his lap deleted in competition. — JW

BREAKING: Tsunoda has pulled himself from the lap time basement, jumping up to 19th (by a whopping 4 thousandths of a second). Ollie Bearman is now the scoreboard anchor. — JW

Alpine principal Oliver Oakes tells media that he's glad Jack Doohan's been hitting back at all the Colapinto chatter: 

"I was quite proud of him being punchy with you all."

Crofty and Co. reaching the "what else can you talk about" point of three days observing testing and no actual racing. Reminds me of the middle-of-the-night commentary at Rolex or Le Mans with the slap-happy, delirium-fed dialogue. What brilliantly strange things will we learn about our commentary team today in the last 45 minutes? - LC

To semi-counter(?) Jon's observation, if I had put in two full racing distances at this track in one day, I better walk away with something like the fastest lap of the day. Honestly, impressive considering he has got to be well beat by now with 50 minutes to go. - LC

In the department of "things that weren't on our bingo cards", Albon steals the top spot from Verstappen with a 1:29.650. — JW

Verstappen having to wrangle the RB-21 intently as it understeers and oversteers its way through another session. — JW

Though McLaren duo hasn't put up the lap times of Russell and Antonelli, Ruth Buscombe shares that there's a significant tire deg gap that actually puts the McLarens in real-world lead. TBD in about two weeks, of course. — JW

Alex Albon heads back out yet again. Possibly earning time-and-a-half pay at this point. — JW

From Alex Kalinauckas, man on the ground, Aston explains the situation: “Following an initial session in the car today Lance subsequently felt unwell. Fernando will finish the test today.” - JW

Fun fact from Bernie Collins: Bahrain track reached a high of 33 degrees C today, the highest across testing this year. Last year's high was 39 C. Collins says two degrees of temp is worth a tenth of a second of lap time — and the track is running about six tenths slower than yesterday's (much) cooler temps. — JW

With about a 75 minutes left in testing, Aston still hasn't run a race sim for either Stroll or Alonso because of Stroll's sickness throwing off the team's game plan. Looking now like Alonso's going to get the next run, as the team swaps in his seat. — JW

Crofty, gamely filling airtime, wondering if shift lights/audible alerts from the steering wheel violate the spirit of the rules about how only drivers can control the car. Chandhok rightly noting that this thought experiment quickly turns into an existential slippery slope. — JW

Ocon made a funky move that would have earned him a penalty, ducking into the pit entry and then back out again — seemingly some miscommunication on his plan. — JW

Albon just leapt up into the top-5 with a speedy 1:30.173. The power of persistence! —JW

Ayao Komatsu tells F1 TV's Lawrence Barretto that the Haas VF-25 is "very very close" in their race sim data to the pack. Close to which teams, he didn't elaborate. — JW

If you're watching the live timing AND the actual video feed, you'll notice that you'll see the specific tire compounds listed on the video (C1s, C2s, C3s, and so on) next to their names and times, but not on the live timing screen itself, which is providing a H/M/S per usual.

It's a bit maddening to discern. While we can tell you which Cs fall into the H/M/S, it would be nice to be able to see it all consistent across both feeds. - LC

Piastri caught behind Ocon, ducks inside the Frenchman on turn 4. Most scintillating track action we've seen in hours. — JW

Hamilton returns to track on C4s. Verstappen placed the fastest time shortly after I mentioned no one had yet to post a lap faster than Gasly's. So...

Anyone want to give Verstappen's time a run? Hamilton? Bueller? - LC

I appreciate how wonderful Mercedes' drivers are to everyone when they're constantly asked about life after Lewis. They broke up months ago kids. Let them heal. Lewis and Mercedes have moved on. We should too. - LC 

Word from our reporters on the ground is that Russell isn't too happy with the newer, smaller tires for 2026. More to come after the end of testing today, when Pirelli shares some info on performance. — JW

Albon finds himself going fast in a straight line — unfortunately it was at turn, as his right front locked up. All good now, but I imagine running near 100 laps now and counting will lead to a few moments like that. — JW

Look! We found the Aston Martin! - LC

Verstappen's stolen fastest lap of the day from Gasly with a crisp 1:29.844 — first to break the fabled* 1:30 barrier.

(* not actually fabled)

— JW

Albon's had an incredibly long day. Double-shift, 97 laps and counting. That's a distance of 524.96km or 325.48miles for my American counterparts. So just shy of two race distances for an F1 race. - LC

We just posted a story about Hamilton using negativity as fuel two minutes ago, and Crofty noted it on the F1 TV broadcast. Appreciate the click, Crofty! —JW