Russell surprised: Fastest lap on chaotic test day in Bahrain!

Russell surprised: Fastest lap on chaotic test day in Bahrain!

On the final day of Formula 1 testing in Bahrain, Mercedes' George Russell set the fastest lap with a time of 1:29.545 minutes. This makes him 21 thousandths of a second faster than world champion Max Verstappen, who drove for Red Bull. Charles Leclerc was able to achieve the best time of the day with 1:30.811 minutes for Ferrari in the morning, but this only brought him ninth in the overall ranking krone.at reported. The temperatures on this day were the highest of the entire test phase, which affected the lap times compared to the previous day.

An interruption caused by a broken glass pane, which paralyzed the route for a short time, attracted particular attention. Apparently the pane had come loose from a small house and fallen onto the track, causing chaos. There were also technical problems that repeatedly caused delays; a power outage had already disrupted the tests on Wednesday. This series of mishaps raises questions about the reliability of the teams, while Ferrari's Carlos Sainz called for more testing days and described the current conditions as "ridiculously few". formula1.de reported.

Curiosities and speculations in the paddock

During the test day, some teams were once again faced with technical problems. André Kimi Antonelli from Mercedes had to check his power unit, while Fernando Alonso from Aston Martin surprisingly dropped out in the first session after replacing Lance Stroll. On these occasions it became apparent that the lap times were significantly behind compared to the previous test days, which were sometimes 1.5 seconds faster. Muted hopes for the performance of the top teams in the new season were left behind as rumors of “sandbagging”, i.e. intentionally withholding real speed during test drives, arose.