Special assignment for Verstappen: 'Drive as slowly as possible'

Max Verstappen will drive his new RB19 throughout Thursday's testing days in Bahrain. What are Red Bull testing and how is the car on the track? Sam Collins and Jolyon Palmer shine their light during the Sky Sports broadcast.

Max Verstappen had a minor moment in turn one at the start of the morning session. Former driver Jolyon Palmer points to the track conditions. "The rear axle looks not great, but so much of it can be track conditions at this time."

The sidepods

Sam Collins put his eye on the flow visulisation paint under the RB19's sidepods. "They are studying the airflow underneath the sidepod. That's what they're looking at. They want to understand how this new car is reacting. They are doing slow laps, Verstappen is being told to drive as slowly as possible so the engineers can look at the detail of what's going on," he said.

With just under 30 minutes left in the session, Red Bull Racing sit top of the leaderboard. Verstappen is one of the leading drivers on the lap count as well so the World Champions are off to a positive start.