#F1 Bahrain Test, Day 3: @Max33Verstappen fastest in final day of testing. #F1Testing

Verstappen fastest – Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen was fastest in the final day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit for Red Bull Racing.

The times continued to tumble as the sun set in Bahrain, and the morning time-sheets were shuffling continuously. A late red flag caused by Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas’ stoppage left 20 minutes for a final push as pre-season testing drew to a close – during which Verstappen suffered a full 360 degree spin at the last corner before posting the quickest lap of all with a 1:31.720, comfortably the quickest across the three days of pre-season testing.

This left Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in second, 0.695 seconds adrift of the Dutchman’s blistering benchmark, with the Monegasque driver completing 51 laps in mileage.

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso ended up third overall after setting his best effort in the final minutes as the two-time World Champion hit the second most amount of laps on the day with 122 tours of the Bahrain track.

Mercedes’ George Russell was therefore demoted to fourth – his team-mate Lewis Hamilton down in 17th, but completed 78 laps in the morning session.

With 40 minutes remaining, the aforementioned Bottas moved up to fifth before stopping his C42 racer at turn eight on his cool-down tour, bringing out the second red flag of the day. The Finn capped off a sensational day for the Hinwil-based squad, which also saw Zhou Guanyu (11th on the time-sheets) begin with a solid 82 laps before the lunch break.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was sixth in the order, and went wheel-to-wheel with Russell’s W13 in the evening – after their respective team-mates Pierre Gasly (12th in the classification) and Hamilton set the example in the morning run.

Morning pace-setter Sergio Perez came seventh overall for Red Bull and ahead of Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher who was eighth.

Schumacher brought out the first red flag of the day – a short one – as the German spun his VF-22 racer out of the last corner after two hours (39 tours) of running in the afternoon. He went on to clock up 57 laps in mileage by the end.

McLaren’s Lando Norris jumped up to ninth very late on, with a solid 90 laps of the Bahrain International Circuit – with the Briton running another full-day in the absence of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo – who was hit with COVID-19.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top ten, running an impressive 81 laps as the four-time World Champion enjoyed a productive evening.

In 13th on the time-sheets was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who ran the morning and completed 68 tours in total with the Spaniard praising the Scuderia’s reliability, and finishing the team’s testing programme satisfactorily.

Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon only ran 18 laps in the FW44 in the afternoon, with team-mate Nicholas Latifi (15th in the order) who had the morning duties, brought back into the cockpit to bring his mileage up to the highest on the day with 124 tours.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and the aforementioned Mercedes of Hamilton were 16th and 17th respectively, as Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who started an hour earlier brought up the rear – the Kannapolis-Banbury outfit catching up having missed running, with Schumacher who lapped into Saturday night after the official test day ended.

Testing is now over and the stage is set for next weekend’s season-opening Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022, where the team’s efforts will be stacked up against each other under the sport’s new raft of rules and regulations designed for closer and competitive racing – who will begin on the right foot? Who will be at the rear? Find out next Sunday March 20.

Formula 1 Bahrain 2022 Pre-Season Testing, Day 3 Classification

Catch up on the first two days of 2022 Pre-Season Testing at Bahrain here at the links below:

#F1 2022 Bahrain Test, Day 2: @Carlossainz55 fastest in red-flag filled day. #F1Testing

#F1 2022 Bahrain Pre-Season Test Day 1: @PierreGASLY tops time-sheets.