Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli set the fastest lap on day two of Bahrain F1 testing beating Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen, as Aston Martin struggles continued with Fernando Alonso stopping on track.
The Italian set a 1:32.803 benchmark—the quickest lap of testing so far—late in the afternoon as conditions peaked, capping a day in which every team cycled through long runs, qualifying simulations and systems checks ahead of 2026 Formula 1 season-opener in Melbourne.
From the moment the pit exit light turned green in the morning, teams treated this fifth day of Bahrain running as their last serious opportunity to correlate factory projections with real‑world performance before locking in baseline set‑ups for the opening Grand Prix.
Mercedes’ day was a masterclass in efficiency with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli logging a total of 156 trouble-free laps, a stark recovery from prior stoppages that had hampered their first test week.
Russell’s morning run was heavily oriented towards long‑run consistency, energy deployment strategies and fine‑tuning the Mercedes W17’s baseline setup on the abrasive Bahrain surface.
Antonelli took over from Russell in the afternoon and built up through a sequence of progressively quicker runs, initially on harder compounds before switching to a C3 tyre push lap that delivered the 1:32.803 that would stand as the reference for the field.
Antonelli’s lap time edged Piastri’s best by just 0.058s, suggesting the Mercedes W17 has at least hit its initial development targets for the all‑new 2026 regulations package.
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McLaren showed impressive consistency throughout the day with Lando Norris setting an early benchmark in the morning session at 1:33.453, a time that held strong enough to land him fifth overall by day’s end.
The afternoon running belonged to Oscar Piastri who inherited an already dialled in McLaren MCL40 from Norris and immediately looked comfortable on both race‑style and qualifying‑style programs.
As track conditions peaked later in the day, McLaren switched the Australian to the C3 compound and allowed him a more aggressive low‑fuel attempt, resulting in a lap of 1m32.861s that temporarily vaulted him to the top of the timesheets.
Although Antonelli would ultimately displace him, Piastri’s effort confirmed that McLaren remains a genuine front‑running threat with a car that appears both kind on its tyres and responsive to set‑up tweaks over a single lap.
Max Verstappen slotted into third place on the C3 compound, 0.359 seconds off Antonelli’s pace, after a highly productive day amassing 139 laps that spoke volumes about the Red Bull RB22’s reliability.
Ferrari’s day was a mixture of promise and frustration with Lewis Hamilton taking fourth overall despite losing significant time to a technical issue just 4 laps in the morning session and a big slide through the gravel on the exit of Turn 4.
The seven‑time champion was sidelined for a chunk of running as engineers addressed a problem on the Ferrari SF‑26, delaying his programme and forcing a compressed schedule once the car returned to the track in the afternoon.
Even so, Hamilton managed 78 laps and recorded a best of 1:33.408 placing him just 0.045s clear of Norris, who held fifth after his earlier morning benchmark.
Cadillac makes progress as Aston Martin face Honda power unit issues
One of the more intriguing stories on day two of Bahrain F1 testing was the progress of the new Cadillac‑badged entry where Sergio Perez recorded the team’s quickest time of testing so far with a 1m35.369s run in the afternoon.
That lap still left the team over 2.5 seconds off Antonelli’s benchmark, underscoring the size of the task facing the all‑new operation as it seeks to close the gap to established front‑runners.
At the opposite end of the confidence spectrum sat Aston Martin, whose difficult pre‑season continued with another high‑profile stoppage and a second consecutive red flag across the week.
After Lance Stroll’s spin into the gravel at Turn 11 on the opening day, the team was hoping for a cleaner day 2 but those hopes were dashed when Fernando Alonso’s AMR26 ground to a halt on the exit of Turn 4 due to a Honda power unit issue.
The incident happened just under an hour into the afternoon segment forcing race control to deploy the red flag for around 20 minutes while the stricken car was recovered.
Alonso had completed approximately 40 laps in the morning session and was 28 laps into his afternoon running when the stoppage occurred, ending what had been a productive if not especially fast day for the two‑time champion.
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Russell beats Piastri in Second Bahrain F1 test Day 1 as Stroll causes red flag
