Bahrain F1 test: Norris quickest as Verstappen completes over 130 laps

World champion Lando Norris topped the times on the first day of Formula 1 testing in Bahrain on Wednesday.

The McLaren driver moved to the top of the times as the night fell, posting his fastest lap on Pirelli’s medium tyres after taking over from Oscar Piastri, who drove in the ‘morning’ session.

Norris’s best lap of 1:34.669sec was around half a second quicker than the fastest lap in last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

McLaren said it focused on collecting aero data instead of doing continuous runs in order to maximise learning across a range of set-ups rather than focusing on mileage or laptime.

The Briton outpaced Max Verstappen by 0.129sec to head the leaderboard at the end of the day.

Verstappen, quickest in the morning, was by far the busiest driver, completing well over two grand prix distances as his RBPT power unit continued to impress with its reliability.

But it wasn’t just Red Bull which enjoyed a strong day in terms of running, as another six teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Haas, Audi, Williams and Cadillac – covered over 100 laps on the day.

Aston Martin had the least productive day as Lance Stroll managed just 36 laps, 33 of those in the morning, sitting in the garage for most of the afternoon as technical issues appear to hit the Adrian Newey-designed car.

“The Honda team detected a data anomaly with the power unit in the afternoon, which required further analysis and limited Lance’s running,” Aston explained after the session.

Stroll wound up second slowest, only ahead of the Alpine of Franco Colapinto , who hit trouble early on in the day.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc replaced Lewis Hamilton halfway through the day and went third fastest ahead of Esteban Ocon in the Haas.

Like Verstappen, Ocon was the only driver on track for his team. Racing Bulls and Aston Martin followed the same strategy.

After George Russell completed 56 trouble-free laps in the morning, team-mate Kimi Antonelli‘s afternoon was far less productive, the Italian spending several hours in the Mercedes garage before going back out late on the day.

Nico Hülkenberg caused the first red flag of the afternoon when he stopped his Audi on track around 1.5 hours into the session.

However, the German managed to get going again after a moment, and there was no need to recover his car, going on to enjoy a productive day.

Pierre Gasly took over from Alpine team-mate Colapinto at the wheel of the A526, the Argentine’s morning session cut short after stopping on track after only 28 laps.

The issue with the car appeared to delay Alpine’s afternoon running, as Gasly stayed in the garage for over an hour after the pitlane was open.

Despite that, Gasly enjoyed a stronger outing than his team-mate, covering over 40 laps.

The Bahrain test continues until Friday.

Bahrain F1 test: Day 1 times