Due to a late red flag caused by Valterri Bottas's stoppage, Max Verstappen only had 20 minutes for a final time attack.
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On the final day of Bahrain pre-season testing on Saturday, reigning champion Max Verstappen topped the timesheets after a thrilling time attack. As the sun set in Sakhir, the morning leaderboard was constantly shifting. Due to a late red flag caused by Valtteri Bottas’s stoppage, Red Bull’s Verstappen had 20 minutes for a final time attack, during which he spun 360 degrees at the final corner before setting the fastest lap and improving to an overall benchmark of 1m 31.720s, easily the fastest of the three days in Bahrain.
Charles Leclerc was second, 0.695s behind for Ferrari, with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso in third after setting his fastest lap in the closing minutes. As a result, Mercedes’ George Russell was demoted to P4 in the morning, with teammate Lewis Hamilton 17th after 78 laps.
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Bottas climbed to fifth place with 40 minutes remaining before stopping on his cool-down lap at Turn 8, resulting in the second red flag of the day. Zhou Guanyu (P11) started the day with 82 laps before lunch, capping off a promising day for the team. Yuki Tsunoda, P6, of AlphaTauri, went wheel-to-wheel with Russell in the evening, following the lead set by their respective team mates Pierre Gasly (P12) and Hamilton in the morning.
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Sergio Perez, the morning leader, finished seventh overall, ahead of Mick Schumacher of Haas. After two hours (39 laps) of racing in the afternoon, the German brought out the first red flag of the day – for a brief moment – when he spun coming out of the final corner. He was in P8 when the chequered flag flew, but he’ll have two more hours of running to make up for the time Haas lost on Thursday morning.
Lando Norris climbed to P9 late in the race, and with over 80 laps on the board, he set the fastest time of the three days – in the absence of Daniel Ricciardo, who was out with Covid-19. Sebastian Vettel of Aston Martin had a productive evening of racing, clocking over 80 laps on his way to P10.
