Leclerc took the lead in the morning after being threatened by an early morning problem

The morning session of the last day of the preseason which ends this Saturday at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain concluded with charles leclerc at the top of the table in 1’31.024, the fastest time I’ve seen in testing so far, and more than four tenths from Russell with third Aston Martin driver Drugovich, who continues to cover for the loss of injury said Stroll, in just a second.

But the Ferrari team started the day with a scare when he tried to test a new solution of more load and a single support on his rear wing, but the part (the upper flap) failed as soon as he took it out on the track so Leclerc activated the DRS which stuck and he had to go back to the pit. The solution was immediately disassembled by the Scuderia mechanics and replaced by the medium load option of the previous days, so the comparison has to be suspended.

Doubts are constantly raised by Ferrari, the team chosen to fight Red Bull, or is it like the others, here in this test nothing will be what it seems, they are playing cat and mouse. In the calculation of the Scuderia’s morning sessions in Bahrain, two for Sainz and one for Leclerc, the man from Madrid seems more comfortable. Leclerc this Saturday had traction problems at the exit of turns 2-3 and at turn 11, with a lot of oversteering that made the Monegasque desperate. And the degradation in long stints is especially worrying, from lap 5-6 it goes over a second and from lap 10 it goes well under two seconds.

for his part Checo Perez, that he did not look for the ‘hot lap’ in this morning’s session and devoted himself to testing the settings and doing simulations with the C3, he was more able to maintain a certain race pace, more than decent with Red. Bull, the best of his rivals this morning. He finished fourth, but Red Bull didn’t care despite the displays of his champion Max Verstappen in the previous two days. In addition, the Mexican will have a double session this Saturday to find time.

Aiming for third in contention, Mercedes, this morning represented by George Russell, accumulated 83 laps and tried to make up for missing last night’s simulated race due to a hydraulic failure in his Mercedes. His time, the second of the session, was done on the softest compound of all, C5, which, like C4, they won’t have in next week’s GP.

Who, in the absence of a ‘hot lap’ at Red Bull, was third in contention (also with C5) became the young Brazilian Felipe Drugovich that he is covering well the injury loss of Lance Stroll, whose condition has not been reported since Friday except that he is expected to be available for next week’s inaugural GP in Bahrain. In that midfield battle, Aston Martin seems to have clearly won the game against Alpine, who continue to accumulate reliability problems, now with Piastri due to problems with cracks in the front deflectors.

two red flags

There were two red flags in this morning’s session, one very early in the day due to a piece breaking away from Checo Pérez’s Red Bull and the second one an hour and twenty from the finish due to a mechanical failure in Alfa’s gearbox Romeo by Valteri Bottas who had to finish the morning session early.

Fernando Alonso, a boss

After a break for food, it was, among others, that Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso took over as the ‘big boss’ of the morning while everyone was waiting in the Aston Martin both in the pit lane and in the pitlane.