Leclerc sets the morning pace on second day of Bahrain pre-season test

Charles Leclerc was the pacesetter during the second morning of pre-season testing in Bahrain, heading Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly at the top of the timesheets.

After Norris ended the opening day of action on top, it was the Briton who was first to hit the track as Thursday’s running got underway ahead of a full day at the wheel of the MCL40 for the reigning World Champion.

Several other cars joined the fray when the green light appeared, before a red flag was thrown just 10 minutes into the session owing to the Cadillac of Sergio Perez coming to a halt on track. With the car quickly removed, running soon continued as the teams resumed their programmes.

One squad that failed to make an appearance during the early stages was Red Bull, with Isack Hadjar – taking over from Max Verstappen after the Dutchman’s full day in the car on Wednesday – still absent from the track by the halfway point. It transpired that the team had discovered an issue on the RB22.

Mercedes also had a quiet morning, with Kimi Antonelli completing three laps early on before spending much of the session in the garage.

Elsewhere the rest of the pack set about gaining further mileage, as the likes of Norris, Williams’ Alex Albon and Leclerc were amongst those to clock up particularly high lap counts – moving past race distance – as the afternoon progressed.

As the running continued – with Perez soon able to rejoin following his earlier issue – some looked to be taking the opportunity to practise following others in the 2026 generation of cars, with Norris circulating behind Albon at one stage before overtaking into the first corner.

Entering into the final minutes, Norris’ McLaren appeared to have come to a stop at the end of the pit lane, leading to the World Champion getting out of the car before the mechanics approached to take his challenger back to the garage.

With one minute left on the clock, Hadjar emerged from the garage to complete a lap in the Red Bull – but in terms of the timesheets, Leclerc’s earlier benchmark of 1m 34.273s remained unbeaten at the top when the chequered flag fell.

This put the Ferrari driver 0.511s clear of Norris – who, despite his late stoppage, achieved the highest lap count of the morning on a tally of 64 – while Gasly placed in third, ahead of Haas’ Ollie Bearman in fourth and Albon in fifth.

Nico Hulkenberg classified P6 for Audi, followed by Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, Perez and the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso. Antonelli sat in 10th following his brief outing earlier in the session, while Hadjar was 11th, both drivers failing to set a timed lap.

A one-hour lunch break will follow before the teams return for the afternoon session, where several – that being Mercedes, Williams, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac – will be swapping drivers.