2026 Formula 1 Bahrain Pre-Season 1
F1 Bahrain pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 2
Follow along for updates on the second day of F1's 2026 pre-season test in Bahrain
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Good morning one and all! Who fancies some more F1 testing action? Oh, go on then. Running gets under way in 10 minutes and here’s who is in action today:
McLaren: Lando Norris
Mercedes: Andrea Kimi Antonelli (AM)/Goerge Russell (PM)
Red Bull: Isack Hadjar
Ferrari: Charles Leclerc
Williams: Alex Albon (AM)/Carlos Sainz (PM)
Racing Bulls: Liam Lawson (AM)/Arvid Lindblad (PM)
Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso
Haas; Oliver Bearman
Audi: Nico Hulkenberg (AM)/Gabriel Bortoleto (PM)
Alpine: Pierre Gasly
Cadillac: Sergio Perez (AM)/Valtteri Bottas (PM)
It is potentially a big day for Hadjar given he hit the headlines for the wrong reasons with a crash in the wet during the Barcelona shakedown. It was far from the end of the world and the team's explanation of the barrier trouble took the blame entirely away from the French driver. But crashing in testing can be oh-so costly - just ask Gasly for his experience at Red Bull.
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
And just to confirm as the green flag is waved, it is the same plan as yesterday. Four hours of running this morning before a lunch break and then another four hours of action, with the final hour broadcast live on TV for all to see.
The day starts with what appears to be a planned Virtual Safety Car test, as Norris, Hulkenberg, Leclerc and Bearman head out under VSC conditions. It lasts for a lap before the green flag is waved again and the proper testing can start.
That quartet have been joined on the track by Gasly and Albon, while Leclerc has given us our first lap time of the day: a 1m57.509s. Which, safe to say, won't be the fastest lap time at the end of the day.
Perez in the Cadillac and Antonelli in the Mercedes make it eight teams to venture out so far, so we're just missing Red Bull, Aston Martin and Racing Bulls. Meanwhile Gasly has provided some quicker times to go top with a 1m39.625s.
Hold up, we have our first red flag of the day. Perez has come to a halt in his yet-to-be-named Cadillac. The timing screen had him down as stopped for a long time before the red flag was officially shown, so we had a feeling this was coming.
As the rest of the drivers head back to the pits, Perez awaits recovery. The Mexican appeared to be on his out-lap and has come to a halt on the back straight.
Perez in the Caddy retrieved and off we go again.
Lawson has appeared in the Racing Bulls for the first time today and is sporting one heck of a aero rake. We are talking a total garden fence panel that hangs across the centre of the car just behind the airbox. Well, big airbox, big aero rake.
Most drivers so far have done a handful of taster laps, but Alpine's Gasly is already into the main course of his day. The French driver is up to 11 laps with the leading time on 1m39.625s set on the hard (C1) tyres. He is running at a consistent pace around the 1m40s mark, before he ruins our fun by pitting.
Alonso has ventured out on to the track for the first time this morning in the Aston Martin, which means we are just missing Red Bull and it sounds like it is more than just a late finish to breakfast down at the Milton Keynes-based team. We're just chasing up some information, so we will keep you posted.
Confirmed: Red Bull will miss the first half of the morning session. The team has stated it found a "routine issue" during the car build yesterday and expect to be delayed for the first two hours of the day.
So, that is two of the 11 teams currently unable to run. But it is testing and for most teams this is just the fifth day of proper running with these all-new cars and engines. You could say this is the halfway point of pre-season testing, given there's just under five days left of running permitted before heading to Melbourne. It doesn't matter if your glass is half-full or half-empty, we're at the halfway mark whichever way you slice it. (Unless you are Williams or Aston Martin).
Bearman takes to the top of the times with a 1m38.792s, but his glory is short-lived as Gasly replies with a 1m38.027s. All pretty perfunctory given no performance running at this point, but old habits die hard.
Not to say that we're impatient, but the one thing we really want to see is how these cars are able to follow each other and, ultimately, race. The racing part we accept we must wait until the Australian GP (6-8 March, but it in your calendars now!) but there's been few and far moments of cars being even close to each other at a similar pace.
Nico Hulkenberg, Audi F1 Team, Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
Anyway, back to the purpose of testing and Gasly, now on softs, is chipping away at his best time to put in a 1m37.625s. Bearman and Leclerc have joined him in the double figures for laps completed so far this morning.
In case you missed the action yesterday, how about a video round-up? Our scribe Jake Boxall-Legge has donned his audio-visual tools to provide this update on Day 1's action:
Watch: Autosport Explains: F1 Testing Day 1
Norris has pushed the best lap time of the day to 1m36.187s but that is still some way off his 1m34.669s that headlined yesterday's testing.
There's been no update from Cadillac since Perez's stoppage, the team has just got the car back into the garage and is investigating the problem.
Sainz has been speaking to the media in Bahrain this morning and is the latest figure to heap praise on what he is seeing down at Red Bull with its all-new in-house engine.
“It's still extremely early days, but if I would have to judge by the GPS data of yesterday, right now it is true that whatever Red Bull Ford powertrains were doing yesterday was a clear step ahead of anyone else,” Sainz said.
“A clear step, not only a small step, but a clear step and it was mighty impressive. If they manage to turn up to race one with a completely new set of regulations, with a completely new engine, new people and turn up to be the fastest and most reliable engine, you will have to take your hat off to them and say what they've come up with, because at least what they were showing yesterday was very impressive.”
Norris goes faster again, this time with a 1m35.795s, to keep the leaderboard ticking over. Still no lap time from Hulkenberg or Antonelli despite both venturing out for out-laps and in-laps earlier.
Total lap count for the day so far:
1. Gasly – Alpine – 20 laps
2. Bearman – Haas – 16 laps
3. Leclerc – Ferrari – 16 laps
4. Norris – McLaren – 12 laps
5. Albon – Williams – 11 laps
6. Hulkenberg – Audi – 9 laps
7. Lawson – Racing Bulls – 6 laps
8. Alonso – Aston Martin – 5 laps
9. Perez – Cadillac – 4 laps
10. Antonelli – Mercedes – 3 laps
11. Hadjar - Red Bull - 0 laps
Leclerc has produced the fastest lap of the day and the fastest lap of the test so far. A 1m34.442s puts him top and eclipses the 1m34.669s set by Norris yesterday.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images
As an extremely loose reference time, the fastest lap of last year's Bahrain test - with the old generation of cars - was a 1m29.348s set by Sainz for Williams. It will be curious to see how close the F1 teams get to that with these infant and, in theory, slower cars by the end of next week.
Remember that aero rake we described earlier (07:21 GMT)? This is it but sat a bit further back on the car. Told you it was massive.
Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
Albon has joined Norris and Gasly out on the track to make it a trio of active runners, all Mercedes customer engine teams which is neat, while others either fix their cars or digest their early running. Or both.
Speaking of engines, Sainz's comments are very interesting in the context of the latest politicking around the compression ratio saga. Yesterday Mercedes boss Wolff said they'd be "screwed" if changes to the rules were voted through and since then a lot of those with a vested interest in Mercedes (Vowles and Sainz at Williams plus Wolff himself) have been very complimentary about the Red Bull Ford engine which had looked to have been on the same side of the argument as Mercedes. This one is going to run and run until Melbourne.
But about Mercedes and its power unit.... the German squad has an engine issue which is preventing it from running. Antonelli has completed just three laps so far this morning. That makes it Red Bull, Cadillac and Mercedes sidelined for now.
Here's the total lap counts for the day so far:
1. Gasly - Alpine — 38 laps
2. Leclerc - Ferrari — 34 laps
3. Norris - McLaren — 32 laps
4. Bearman - Haas) — 30 laps
5. Albon – Williams — 28 laps
6. Alonso – Aston Martin — 20 laps
7. Hulkenberg - Audi — 17 laps
8. Lawson – Racing Bulls — 11 laps
9. Perez – Cadillac — 8 laps
10. Antonelli - Mercedes — 3 laps
11. Hadjar – Red Bull – 0 laps
Some of my colleagues have shown up for the start of their day (half-dayers, I know) and have remarked that the two most talked about teams have made the worst start to the day.
To recap in case you've missed the first two-and-a-bit hours of running, we're still yet to see Red Bull after it discovered a car issue during a rebuild overnight, while Mercedes has completed just three laps and is stuck in the garage with an engine problem.
Cadillac has since returned to action after a very early red flag when Perez stopped on track on his out-lap. Here's a full update.
On the ground in Bahrain Ronald Vording reports that Red Bull is understood to have found a leak in the engine which is the cause of its elongated stay in the garage.
Hopefully the leak isn't in the compression chamber...
Red Bull, don't come for me after that joke, we're all friends here.
Meanwhile Leclerc has chipped away at the fastest lap time with a 1m34.273s in the Ferrari as he closes in on a half-century of laps for this morning.
'Victor N' in the comments says Audi's radical sidepods remind him of the Ferrari 640 which raced in 1989. There is some resemblance and that Ferrari was fast but terribly unreliable. When it finished a race, it finished on the podium, it just didn't finish very many. Wonder if Audi would take that this year?
A total of six cars are on the track at present which is the most all at once for ages. The action is heating up ahead of the final hour of the morning session, and Gasly is about to win the race to reach 50 laps completed.
It has been a low-key morning down at Aston Martin - Alonso has notched up 35 laps with a best time of 1m39.435s to put him eighth fastest - but given the team effectively missed over half of its allowed Barcelona shakedown running, it is focused on system checking and data collecting in Bahrain. A lot has been said about the Newey-designed, Honda-powered Aston, but any certain conclusions would be premature at this stage.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
By: Autosport Staff
