F1 testing 2024 LIVE: Pre-season lap times, schedule and updates ...

Wow. Some debris flies off Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin and immediately behind him, Daniel Ricciardo manages to swerve and avoid it.

No so for Nico Hulkenberg who bombs right over it.

Into the final quarter of an hour of today’s testing session. Lando Norris is about to head back out onto track on fresh set of tyres. It seems McLaren are sending him out with a set of C4s.

Williams have called it a day as the team continues to explore a suspected driveshaft issue. The new car completed just 61 laps in total across Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant today.

It’s not a disastrous day but can’t be called successful either.

Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin has just been sprayed with flow-vis paint which will give the engineers an idea of air flow, when the car is on the track.

On his way around, he skids off track so any data the garage was gathering won’t be hugely accurate from this initial lap.

Things have gone quiet in terms of the leaderboard changing but Pierre Gasly has just set a new lap time of 1:33.940 in his Alpine.

Gasly finished 11th in the driver standings with 62 points last year and secured a first Alpine podium finish in Zandvoort at the Dutch Grand Prix.

The 28-year-old also finished third in the sprint race in Spa at the Belgium Grand Prix.

The times for the remaining testing sessions at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir are as follows:

(All times GMT)

Thursday 22 February

7am-11am – Morning session

12pm-4pm – Afternoon session

Friday 23 February

7am-11am – Morning session

12pm-4pm – Afternoon session

Max Verstappen sweeps around George Russell in a cutting move to overtake the Mercedes with both drivers on longer runs.

Russell pretty much gets out of the way as Verstappen has disappears off down the road. The Dutchman is on medium tyres with Russell on similarly aged ones too.

The Mercedes man’s best time is a good two and a half second behind Verstappen as it stands.

Daniel Ricciardo skirts off track, every so slightly heading into the final turn, but he recovers it well and improves his fastest time.

Here’s a look at the current top 10:

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) - 1:31.662

2. Lando Norris (McLaren) + 0.822

3. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) + 0.992

4. Daniel Ricciardo (RB) +1.119

5. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) + 1.412

6. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) + 1.585

7. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) + 1.723

8. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) + 1.996

9. Zhou Guanyu (Stake) + 2.209

10. Logan Sargeant (Williams) + 2.220

Into the final hour of today’s testing session.

Red Bull will of course be happy with Max Verstappen’s output but Daniel Ricciardo has found a bit of pace out of the Red Bull ajoined RB car.

McLaren look strong through Lando Norris who is still attempting to get a few miliseconds out of the car.

At first glance Red Bull’s sidepods look like the same large design that all of the teams are currently running.

But, a small area behind the front wheel is where the sidepod has been hollowed out, with extra cooling inlets placed by the driver’s head.

It’s weird and innovative but so far looks like it’s working as Max Verstappen leads the rest of the field.