F! LIVE - Verstappen fastest as Mercedes improve!

After the first two practice sessions on Friday, drivers and teams get one more hour to fine-tune their setups for the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying session. Max Verstappen was the fastest man on Friday in Bahrain, can he continue that line into Saturday or will Mercedes and Ferrari close the gap as we approach the first meaningful session of 2022. 

Liveblog | FP3 in the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend

The third free practice session is to a lesser extent representative of the main sessions of the weekend due to the different conditions at this time of day. Nevertheless, it will be an important session for some.

Will Mercedes find a solution to the problems?

Mercedes are looking for a solution to the problems the team is experiencing. Down the straights, their car is porpoising. They will hope that from Friday to Saturday they have improved this because they are losing performance on the straights, and the drivers are finding it hard to find their braking point.

Red Bull Racing and Ferrari had a particularly good Friday and for now the battle for pole position seems to be between those two teams. Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have emerged as the strongest so far, but can their teammates surprise?

New season, a clean slate

All teams are still on equal ground for the time being, but that will change after Sunday. This weekend marks the start of the 2022 F1 season. That means the wait is over and all F1 fans will finally get to see which team did its homework best over the winter. In the first practice sessions, the teams are mostly running their own program. 

The hope is that some teams who have it right and are on track in this second free practice are already making some raking shots at the timesheet. Possibly there is a team that already dares to try a qualifying run. The chance of that is small because teams often only do that in FP3, so if we are not much wiser after today's second session we will certainly be after Saturday.