Mercedes pose fresh questions about the order going into Bahrain GP

Mercedes haven't changed much since winter testing last week, so they seem to have turned everything up for this session. Verstappen wasn't visibly pushing the car during his fastest lap. On the long runs, Verstappen lapped around the 1:36.6s, and Mercedes could only briefly touch the high 1:36s, but were more frequently in the 1:37s.

Mercedes topped the leaderboard, with one of Aston Martin (Alonso), Ferrari (Sainz), McLaren (Piastri) and Red Bull (Verstappen) in the top six. Hulkenberg finished the session in seventh for Haas.

Busy in Bahrain

Once again, drivers flooded the track when the green light came on. Valtteri Bottas was a little bit too keen, picking up a pit lane infringement, but the Finn is not expected to get a penalty. This session is the most meaningful because it takes place at the same time as qualifying and the Grand Prix, under floodlights. It was perhaps one of the coldest sessions in Bahrain F1 history.

Haas struggled during FP1 and were at times five seconds off the pace. But they enjoyed themselves in FP2, with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg once holding the top two places on the leaderboard. Hulkenberg maintained his place in the top ten for the majority of the session. But then the top teams put on the soft tyres and started qualifying simulations.

Hamilton placed down an early marker, which he improved upon on his second soft tyre run. He was then joined at the top by his teammate Russell. Russell managed a 1:30.580, just over two-tenths slower than the seven-time World Champion. Verstappen wasn't pushing excessively hard on the soft tyres, suggesting they have more pace in hand. He ended up with the sixth fastest time that was half a second slower than Hamilton. The second half of the session featured long runs and race simulations.