Perez fastest on final day of pre-season testing

Sergio Perez has emerged fastest on Saturday’s final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

The Mexican completed his blistering 1min 31.024sec flyer under floodlights as testing drew to a close, faster than Charles Leclerc’s pole-setting time for the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Leclerc was fastest in the morning session but handed over the reigns to Carlos Sainz to complete a cooling evening session.

Teams elected for shorter and faster runs after lunch with the majority still having fresh C4 and C5 soft tyres remaining, seeing Leclerc’s time bettered by Perez, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

Perez’s lap, which was the fastest of the entire three days, eclipsed Hamilton by .359 seconds and Bottas by half a second. He took control of Red Bull’s car for the entire day, completing 133 laps after World Champion Max Verstappen had Friday’s session to himself.

Bottas also had his Alfa Romeo to himself and showed Alfa Romeo have a great car this year off the back of Zhou Guanyu’s table topping time yesterday.

Alex Albon of Williams was the other driver to have the day to himself and completed 136 laps for the 13th fastest time. Williams are another team who have made solid ground this pre-season having finished inside the top 10 on the two days prior.

Things are looking good for Mercedes with the porpoising issues that plagued them last year no longer a problem.

The same can be said for Ferrari with both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both inside the top five today as they were on Friday.

Haas have also made ground towards the tight midfield. Kevin Magnussen completed an impressive 94 laps in the evening to go seventh fastest, behind Yuki Tsunoda who also improved for AlphaTauri, and ahead of Russell.

Aston Martin finished with Fernando Alonso ninth quickest and Felipe Drugovich in tenth.

Things were slightly tougher for Alpine and McLaren after both their drivers finished outside the top 10 respectively.

There were minor gremlins for several teams including Aston Martin who encountered rear suspension issues which required repairs.

McLaren’s wheel brows also threatened to detach but the team have reported this issue as minor and repairable before next week.

One red flag was required early in the day, albeit briefly, after a sensor fell from the rear of Perez’s car and needed to be retrieved.

Official pre-season testing has now concluded with the Formula 1 season getting underway with the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend.

Whilst the past three days have given us an insight to each cars performance their true pace will be revealed next Sunday.

Day 3 Pre-Season Testing Classifications

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