PEREZ LEADS THE WAY IN PENULTIMATE SESSION OF PRE-SEASON

Sergio Perez was the standard in the penultimate session of pre-season testing in Bahrain, as he topped the timesheets ahead of Guanyu Zhou and Pierre Gasly.

Perez's time of 1:33.105 was enough for the top spot, but the big headline came early in the session when Red Bull unveiled their new-look car. Their performance b immediately increased and Perez set the fastest time early on and never really relinquished his place. The new side pods for Red Bull may be defining for next week's race result and it appears they have dragged themselves closer to the top of the pile. 

Guanyu Zhou was second for Alfa Romeo, about 0.8 seconds down on the Red Bull, with Pierre Gasly a further place back for Alpha Tauri. The Frenchman enjoyed a good solid five-lap battle with Lewis Hamilton and the pair were happy to follow each other which should be evidence that we'll have better racing when the season starts next week.

Hamilton down in ninth as Mercedes focus on long runs

Mercedes and specifically Hamilton haven't had the chance to show us the true pace of the Mercedes, as he finished the session down in ninth. The team focused on long runs in the morning and now George Russell will take to the wheel in the afternoon, so it will be interesting to see if Mercedes do the same with their new driver, or have something else in store.

Zhou springs a surprise

Many have already written of Guanyu Zhou but he proved he could be more than capable of some good results in 2022 as he finished second. The Chinese driver set a fastest time of of sub-1:34 as well as getting 82 laps under his belt.