00:00The final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain, just eight hours of running to go before free practice in
00:06Australia.
00:07Charles Leclerc had the car to himself on the final day, the Monogas clocking the morning's fastest time while setting
00:13an impressive 80 laps.
00:15And as the sun started to set, the 28-year-old flirted with the margins, unable to hold a snap
00:20at Turn 11,
00:22the Ferrari man later exploring the Turn 1 run-off after locking a wheel.
00:26I think it's very early to say. I think everybody is hiding their game and everybody is trying to say
00:34that he's the other team who is the fastest.
00:37So, yeah, not really sure where we are standing.
00:40The man from Monaco set the timing screens alight as the clock counted down.
00:44A 1.31.992, nearly a full second clear of Lando Norris in P2.
00:50Mercedes had been topping the leaderboard so far this week, but bad luck struck the silver arrows on Friday morning.
00:57Kimi Antonelli forced to stop out on track with an engine issue.
01:00So, he's got no energy deployment coming out of Turn 10. That's an ice that's working, giving him some power.
01:06But, obviously, there's an issue with that as well, otherwise he'd trundle around purely on the combustion engine power.
01:11So, he's definitely got nothing from the hybrid system.
01:14Is that, again, is that a sense that's seen something tripped and basically not delivered any power to him?
01:20Or is it something worse than that?
01:22George Russell would end the day for the German outfit, the Brit clocking 82 laps to set the fourth fastest
01:27time.
01:27But, continued to play down his chances ahead of the new season.
01:31I think we've got a lot of potential beneath us.
01:34But, to win a race, you've also got to get off the line quite well.
01:37And, I think the two starts I've made this week worse than my worst ever start in Formula 1.
01:44So, Lewis down in P11 got into P1.
01:49So, at this stage, I don't think it matters how quick you are.
01:52The thing that's going to trip you up is going to be that tallest hurdle.
01:56And, that's what we're trying to get our heads around right now.
01:59And, yeah, we're stumbling on some at the moment.
02:02McLaren entered 2026 as the reigning driver and constructors champions.
02:06And the Woking-based outfit seemed to have created a fast car once again,
02:10with Zac Brown admitting they would be one of the big four heading into the season.
02:14Piastri was third fastest in the morning.
02:16The Aussie, who racked up seven wins last season,
02:19will be hoping to challenge for the title yet again in 2026.
02:23We're probably getting a little bit more optimistic.
02:26Learn a lot of things, both good and bad.
02:28And, yeah, I think we've got some good ideas and good directions.
02:31And, you know, especially with such a big change in the rules,
02:34you know, you're going to try a lot of bad things alongside the good things.
02:37And, finding out all of anything you can before round one is always important.
02:41So, I feel like we're making good progress.
02:43You know, I wouldn't say we're leading the pack by any stretch of the imagination,
02:46but I feel like we're not too bad.
02:49Lando Norris hopped in for the final four hours of pre-season testing,
02:52the newly crowned world champion second fastest,
02:55as McLaren completed 113 laps on Friday.
02:59Despite a couple of pre-season hiccups, Red Bull looked to be in the mix yet again.
03:03Running was split between Max Verstappen and Isaac Hadjar on the final day,
03:07the Milton Keynes outfit competing 124 tours of Bahrain International Circuit,
03:12setting the day's third fastest lap with Verstappen at the wheel.
03:15Hadjar content with progress and looking ahead to his first race as a Red Bull driver.
03:20So, yeah, I feel as ready as I can heading into Melbourne.
03:23And they've been, the guys have been very, very good on making the most of the tests.
03:28We've been through so much test items.
03:30So, yeah, I'm very, I'm very glad with the understanding of the car.
03:33So, I'm happy.
03:35Haas' end pre-season testing is one of the surprise packages so far.
03:39The American outfit having set competitive lap times while competing significant mileage.
03:44Oli Behrmann ended Friday with the sixth fastest time,
03:47as Haas completed 170 laps across both drivers.
03:51The team are yet to score a podium finish in Formula One,
03:54having got close with Behrmann at last season's Mexico City Grand Prix,
03:57the young Brit claiming a memorable P4 finish.
03:59Honestly, the past two days have been by far the most productive,
04:03the ones where we've learned the most about the car,
04:05which is good because it's more or less the one that we're going to bring into Melbourne in two weeks.
04:09So, yeah, on that side of things, it's positive.
04:10We don't know where we stand relative to our competition,
04:13but we've been focusing on ourselves.
04:14And for the most part, the run plan has been completed
04:16and the items that we wanted to go through have been gone through.
04:20It's been a very good test for us.
04:22But since Barcelona, you know, every time we've put the car down on a new day,
04:26you know, we've improved some stuff.
04:28We found more performance.
04:29And I think these last two days have been extremely productive
04:31where we understood a lot of the car and gained performance for free.
04:35So, yeah, I look forward to go racing in Melbourne and see what we can do.
04:38Despite missing significant running in Barcelona,
04:41Williams seemed to have made up for lost ground,
04:43setting 110 laps or more on every single day.
04:46Carlos Sainz enjoyed a successful final day of running,
04:49adding another 141 laps to Williams' impressive total.
04:53What we needed over the last few days,
04:55which was we covered the time lost in Barcelona
04:57by adding a lot of mileage to the car.
04:59I think we've managed to do that well.
05:01And the car is running reliably from the beginning.
05:04That's allowing us, obviously, to find out the limitations
05:06and the areas where we have to improve,
05:09which, unfortunately, there are quite a few.
05:11But, yeah, as I said, the main thing last week was mileage
05:14and then this week we are finally starting to try and find
05:18a bit of lap time and performance out of it
05:20and try to put it in a better setup window.
05:22Alpine were another who seemed to have progressed from 2025,
05:25the Enstone-based squad returning to Mercedes' power units this season,
05:29having finished bottom of the Constructors' standings
05:31for the first time last year.
05:33The team ended the final day of testing with a further 118 laps on the board,
05:37Gasly claiming the fifth fastest time,
05:39important progress for the French manufacturer
05:41ahead of the season opener in Australia.
05:43How the performance is tricky to tell.
05:45I think there is four teams quite far ahead
05:48and then it's the rest of the teams that we are also very close together
05:51between all of us and we'll need to wait and see in race one where we really are.
05:56Both Audi and Racing Bulls have had a mixed final test in Bahrain.
06:00Neither have troubled the top of the times,
06:02although both have seen clear progression through the two weeks in Sakhir.
06:05I certainly feel we made some very good progress from Barcelona and to where we are today.
06:10Definitely some positives there, but you know, it's still early days.
06:12There's always more to do, more to work on, more to optimize.
06:16So yeah, it's very much work in progress, you know, learn as we go
06:19and do our homework as well as we can and go racing.
06:22Impressive mileage from the RB4 powertrains will buoy the Racing Bulls squad,
06:27with Racing Bulls clocking an impressive 165 laps on the final day.
06:30Liam Lawson keen to see where they stack up come Melbourne.
06:34Obviously we're trying a lot of different things at the moment
06:36and some stuff has not worked and then other stuff we've found has been quite positive.
06:41So yeah, I don't think there's really a standout issue or limitation that we have at the moment.
06:46It's just sort of putting things together and obviously preparing as well as we can
06:49because Melbourne, as we're saying, is going to be very, very different compared to here.
06:53Cadillac ended their final day of pre-season testing with a morale-boosting lap time,
06:57one much closer to the pack ahead.
06:59The American team contended with progress ahead of their Grand Prix debut in two weeks' time.
07:04I think it's all about finding the weaknesses at the moment.
07:08The balance on the card feels good.
07:11We just have to go out there and find a lot of load.
07:14I think as a team, you know, being new and putting all the departments in place,
07:17it's going to take some time and the challenge here will be to outdevelop the teams ahead of us.
07:23You know, I think that's a massive challenge that we will be facing for the year.
07:27But I think it's all about the foundations for the first half of the year, you know,
07:31to be able to put the right place in the team, to be able to develop the car as quickly
07:35as possible.
07:36And hopefully we can catch up fairly soon.
07:39Aston Martin completed testing with six laps on Friday.
07:43The Silverstone-based squad unable to make further progress due to a shortage of power unit parts.
07:48Lance Stroll did not set a competitive time on the final day of running.
07:51No, I think we can improve the car for sure.
07:54I mean, we have a lot of ideas.
07:56So will all problems be fixed for Melbourne?
07:58Probably not.
07:59But it's a long season, 24 aces.
08:01So, you know, we keep chipping away.
08:03We try and bring as much performance as we can every weekend.
08:05And then on the engine side, you know, the same.
08:09Just try and bring as much performance as we can throughout the year.
08:12And, you know, we'll see how we go.
08:14So, Leclerc leads Norris, Verstappen, Russell and Gasly.
08:18Behrman, Bortleto, Antonelli, Lindblad and Sainz rounded out the top ten.
08:22Eleventh for Piastri ahead of Ocon, Hadjar and Bottas.
08:25With HĂŒlkenberg, Perez and Stroll rounding out the runners.
08:28Haas completed the most laps on the final day of pre-season testing.
08:31Second was racing balls ahead of Williams and Audi.
08:35Next was Ferrari and Mercedes with Red Bull, Alpine and McLaren completing over a hundred laps.
08:40Cadillac and Aston Martin propped up the leaderboard.
08:44Now, we went into the main program.
08:47And as they saw a video, we went into the middle of the day of the day of the day
08:49of the day of the day of the day of the day mode.
08:50The first thing that I would like to know is the every time I saw a video, that's pretty cool.
08:51It's a whole huge thing that I wanted to Slack and that's really cool.
08:51Until then we will start to follow up at a time of the day of the day of the day,
08:52which is what I've been doing here.
08:53So, we'll make a trip to the day of the day of the day.
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