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Fernando Alonso beat Max Verstappen to top spot in final practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix to set up an intriguing qualifying hour.
Alonso and Verstappen traded fastest sectors in the final 10 minutes of the session, with both unwrapping a new set of soft tires at roughly the same time, facilitating a direct comparison.
Verstappen had the upper hand in the first two sectors, but a snap of oversteer in the final corner ceded the advantage to Alonso, who snatched top spot by just 0.005s.
Continue reading on RACERFernando Alonso sends the Aston Martin hype train into overdrive on an underwhelming day for Max Verstappen, while Mercedes continues to struggle to return to form.
The Aston Martin hype train is gathering an alarming amount of speed just one day into the season proper.
The speculation began during the off-season with whispers of powerful numbers emanating from the wind tunnel.
Fernando Alonso’s performance during pre-season testing got the paddock’s attention with some remarkable long-run demonstrations.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFernando Alonso beat the Red Bull Racing drivers to the top spot in second practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix in another tantalizing glimpse of Aston Martin’s potential. The Spaniard hustled his AMR22 to a best time of 1m 30.907s, pipping Max Verstappen by 0.169s. Sergio Perez was a further 0.002s back in third.
Alonso and Verstappen also looked closely matched on long-run pace, which dominated the only practice session of the weekend run in representative night-time conditions — although most teams burned through their stocks of the soft tire to keep their two sets of the more durable hard rubber for Sunday’s race.
As much as it was good news for Aston Martin, Red Bull Racing didn’t look as settled as it did at last weekend’s test.
Continue reading on RACERRed Bull’s Sergio Perez set a sizzling pace ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso at the opening practice session of the season in Bahrain.
Perez deployed the soft tire to set a session-best time of 1m 32.758s, almost half a second faster than the rest of the field and more than 0.6s quicker than teammate Max Verstappen in third.
Alonso’s second-place time caused the most interest, though, thanks to Aston Martin’s impressive pre-season showing and forecasts among the leading drivers that the green team could be set to join the front-runners. The two-time champion was 0.438s slower than Perez after his soft-tire run and 0.179s quicker than Verstappen.
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