Williams bounce back as Sainz tops lap charts in Bahrain morning session

Williams were expected to deliver some answers after skipping the behind-closed-doors Barcelona test, and at least on the reliability front, those answers have come through.

The Williams driver, at the wheel of the FW48 in what was effectively the Grove-based team’s first official on-track session, racked up an impressive 77 laps — covering almost one and a half race distances.

Racing Bulls also impressed in terms of mileage, with Arvid Lindblad completing as many as 75 laps, while Max Verstappen ranked third in that classification, underlining the strong reliability shown so far by the Red Bull power unit.

Among the least active teams were Aston Martin, with Lance Stroll completing just 33 laps, and Franco Colapinto with 28 — the latter hampered by a technical issue midway through the morning that cost him roughly an hour of running.

Verstappen, as mentioned earlier, set the fastest time of the morning, clocking a 1:35.433 — just over a tenth clear of Oscar Piastri and six tenths ahead of George Russell.

The lap times are, of course, only indicative, given how far we still are from last year’s testing benchmarks and with night-time conditions yet to arrive at the circuit.