Le FP3 of the Bahrain GP are the last chance for the Fantasy manager to observe the behaviour of the single-seaters and decide who to deploy in their team ahead of qualifying, with McLaren already making us think. This very hot session of F1 it ended again with the McLaren Domination that sees Oscar piastri in first position followed by his partner Lando Norris. Following the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc which is still far from the pace of Papaya.
Ferrari analyzes the updates
The runs done during this session were very few in order to try to preserve the tyres for qualifying and the race as much as possible. In fact theWear will be one of the key issues as the degradation has proven to be very high, also due to the very high temperatures. The only ones who took to the track right away are Ferrari, Haas and Alpine. In particular, the Maranello team decided to test the updates more to fully understand the car. While the others preferred to wait for the temperatures to drop a bit.
They all take to the track in search of the fastest lap
The other teams then start to turn and the Mercedes makes a particular choice. It is in fact the only team to use the yellow tyre, keeping only a new one for the race. Halfway through the session they are Piastres e Norris to mark the best times with a small interruption: a Virtual Safety Car caused by Niko Hulkenberg who stopped on the outside of Turn 8 because, according to him, the car went into anti-stall on its own.
After that everyone tried to find confidence with their cars but the grip seemed to be very low. Russelll after a spin says on the radio that driving in these conditions is very difficult. Meanwhile the single-seater of Leclerc loses a mirror forcing the driver to return to the pits. As the time limit approaches, everyone is looking for the best time which was eventually marked by Oscar Piastri in 1:31.646. Following Norris at +0.668, after a lap with some smudges, and Leclerc at +0.834.
McLaren dominates, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull far behind
In this FP3 of Bahrain, McLaren It is the only single-seater that manages to maintain the same grip from the beginning to the end of the lap without overheating its tyres too much. This allows it to make the real difference compared to its opponents from turn 9. In fact, the times of the Papaya single-seater are scary as the others are much further behind with the Leclerc's Ferrari at 8 tenths and the Mercedes e Verstappen more than a second. Furthermore, the Maranello team has worked hard to understand the behaviour of the single-seater after the updates and try to extract the maximum potential of their car.
Bahrain FP10 Top 3
- Piastres
- Norris
- Leclerc
- Russell
- Antonelli
- gasly
- Hadjar
- Verstappen
- Sainz
- Hamilton
In the meantime, we'll see you at 18:00 for the qualifications!
