From a happy Hamilton to a menacing McLaren – What we learned from Day 1 of pre-season testing in Bahrain

Winter coats and woollen hats were required on the opening day of pre-season testing in the Bahraini desert, courtesy of unseasonably cold conditions that greeted the teams at Sakhir – but that didn’t stop the teams putting stacks of mileage on their shiny new cars. Reading into the times, though, proved harder than ever.

Impressive reliability across the board

It’s always difficult to get a read of the pecking order from the classification, but it felt tougher than ever after the first of three days of running in Bahrain as, excitingly, the field looked closer and more congested than ever.