Pre-season testing summary: The best times of the 3-day testing in Bahrain

It is Sergio Perez who set the fastest time over the three days, combining all sessions. His best time was set on C4 tires, while second place goes to Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes on C5 compound.

Valterri Bottas sets the third best time with the Alfa Romeo despite an engine issue. He also sets his time in C5.

Leclerc and Sainz are behind with the Ferrari. They both set times with the C5 tires. It is worth noting that Ferrari had good testing as reliability was also on point. However, their times are over 7 tenths of a second behind Perez’s Red Bull, which seems quite far considering they are on the same C4 tire compound.

In sixth place, we find the AlphaTauri driver, Yuki Tsunoda. He also set his time on C4 with only two tenths of a gap compared to the Ferraris. So, it is easy to imagine that either AlphaTauri has made good progress, or Ferrari is still hiding their true potential. Haas is also close, about one second behind the leader, in seventh position with Kevin Magnussen.

Russell is 8th, he sets his best lap time on C5 tires, however, he suffered a retirement. Far from perfect testing for the English driver.

Alonso is 9th in the Aston Martin. He drove much more during his tests than Drugovich, who replaced the injured Stroll, and set a time of 1.145 seconds behind Perez in the C4. The second Alfa Romeo closes the top 10.

Outside of the top 10 in this ranking of the best lap times in Bahrain; Verstappen is 1.3 seconds behind his teammate, but on medium tires C3. He is the first among the drivers in this ranking with this less tender and therefore less fast compound. He is ahead of Drugovich, who is 12th on the Aston Martin with C5 tires.

The first McLaren is 13th fastest of these three days of testing, also on C3 tires just like Verstappen, and is “only” 5 tenths behind Verstappen. The other driver in this ranking who achieved his best time with C3 tires is Gasly, now at Alpine. He is further back, 17th, more than a second behind Verstappen. Please note that the fuel loads are unknown.

In 4th and in 14th and 15th place, we find two absent drivers from 2022, Nyck de Vries in the AlphaTauri and Nico Hülkenberg in the Haas.

Logan Sargeant’s Williams, a rookie driver, set the fastest time in C5 during these three days but was far behind the leaders. The American driver is 2.2 seconds behind Perez. However, he is the fastest of the Williams drivers, as Alexander Albon is in 18th place, 2.5 seconds behind on the softest tires as well.

Piastri and Ocon are bringing up the rear. Both drivers set their best times on medium tires and are very far off Verstappen’s C3-leading times. Respectively, they are 1.5 seconds and 1.6 seconds behind.

The importance of tire compounds.

In Bahrain, teams had the opportunity to test 6 tyre compounds: The C1 are the hardest and therefore the most durable and least fast. The C5 are the softest and therefore the fastest but also suffer the most degradation. Another compound, C0, was brought by Pirelli to test a hard tyre that would not require the use of tire warmers.

In Grand Prix races, Pirelli only brings three different tires. A hard one, a medium one, and a soft one. The difference between each tire can be considered to be around 5 tenths of a second, but it can vary depending on the track.

The best times from the Bahrain 2023 tests over the three days.