Max Verstappen made it a pair of P1’s in Friday practice by topping the second session at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Under the lights at Sakhir, the Dutchman posted a 1m30.847s to lead for Red Bull, just under a tenth clear of Lando Norris in the impressive McLaren.
Mercedes initially went 1-2 after completing flying laps on the medium tyre, but would hit the buffers on the switch to soft, barely improving their times as Lewis Hamilton was third and Valtteri Bottas fifth.
The surprise of the evening was Ferrari as Carlos Sainz sat fourth, while teammate Charles Leclerc struggled down in 12th after a poor soft tyre run.
Daniel Ricciardo backed up McLaren’s strong pace in sixth as rookie Yuki Tsunoda impressed, leading AlphaTauri teammate Pierre Gasly by two-tenths in seventh.
Lance Stroll took eighth for Aston Martin, but it was still a tricky day for the Silverstone-based team with Sebastian Vettel down in 14th.
Gasly was ninth, as Sergio Perez sat 10th in the second Red Bull after not improving on his soft tyre run.
As the top teams appeared to hold back pace the gaps were very close, with just 0.656s covered the top 10 and a second covered the top 15.
Kimi Raikkonen was 1.015s back in 16th, and this despite the Finn sliding off into the barrier on the exit of Turn 3 early on, ripping the front wing off his Alfa Romeo.
Our first casualty of the barriers in 2021 ?
The start of Kimi’s FP2 session didn’t go to plan#BahrainGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/1WsTjTnvhF
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 26, 2021
Fernando Alonso sat down in 15th for Alpine, still behind teammate Esteban Ocon in 11th.
Mick Schumacher split the two Williams’ in 18th for Haas and Nikita Mazepin had a spin early on as he brought up the field.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
