Russell tops second day of Bahrain F1 test for Mercedes

George Russell has stormed to the top of the times for Mercedes on the concluding day of the Bahrain Formula 1 test ahead of Sergio Perez.

Russell, testing for Mercedes as its young driver as he qualifies under F1 rules having only contested two races, swapped his Williams for the W10 on the second day of the post-Bahrain Grand Prix test and bolted to the top late on with a 1m 29.029s. It gave the Brit the fastest lap of the test beating Max Verstappen’s leading effort from day one by three-tenths.

Russell’s effort pushed Perez into second place for Racing Point, having earlier displaced Sebastian Vettel from top spot, after taking over from his teammate Lance Stroll in the afternoon. The Mexican driver set a 1m 29.095s meaning he missed out by just 0.066s to Russell.

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Despite losing his shot at the headline time, Vettel rounded out an impressive test for Ferrari having seen Mick Schumacher make his F1 test debut on the opening day.

Schumacher completed his maiden F1 test in the Alfa Romeo, notching up 70 laps and ending the day sixth fastest. The 20-year-old driver went fractionally slower on day two but given the assumed performance gap between the Ferrari and Alfa Romeo F1 cars Schumacher made representative gains on his second day in an F1 car.

Carlos Sainz split his day between Pirelli tyre testing and the regular McLaren car, setting his fastest lap time when he replaced Lando Norris in the team’s MCL34, having spent the morning sticking to a separate tyre test programme.

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Daniil Kvyat, who was also tyre testing for Toro Rosso in Bahrain, slotted into fifth place ahead of Schumacher, while Alexander Albon rounded out an eye-catching Bahrain test in seventh place with a marathon 143 laps on the second day, which provided representative dry and hot track conditions following the rain-interrupted opening day.

With Stroll ending his day eighth quickest, another F1 test debutant Dan Ticktum went ninth fastest for Red Bull notching up 135 laps with a best effort of 1m 30.856s.

Romain Grosjean, who took over from Haas development driver Pietro Fittipaldi in the afternoon after missing most of day one due to the rain, climbed to 10^th place late on ahead of two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso.

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The Spaniard completed his McLaren Pirelli tyre testing programme in the afternoon including a low fuel run hunting a quick time which resulted in a 1m 31.006s – 1.9s off Russell’s leading effort.

With Fittipaldi and Norris narrowly trailing Alonso, Jack Aitken was pushed back to 14^th place on the times testing for Renault as its junior driver but beat Nicholas Latifi in the Williams, while Sainz’s Pirelli tyre work completed the timesheet.

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