Verstappen and the 'hide and seek' on the fastest lap in the tests in Bahrain

The Day 3 ranking

The third and final day of pre-season testing, one week before the first round of the world championship scheduled once again in Bahrain, ended with the Ferrari back at the top of the timesheets. In fact, it was he who performed the best Charles Leclercfollowed by George Russell and Guanyu Zhou's F1 Stake.

Verstappen 'farther away'

There was interest in further understanding Red's performance Max Verstappen's Bull, 4th after having demoralized the entire starting grid with the times of Day 1, when he had generated a gap of at least 1 second on all his pursuers. However, it should be noted that the Dutchman, 4 tenths behind Leclerc, however completed his fastest lap with medium tyresunlike the three riders ahead of him on soft tyres.

The long run program

It is no coincidence that the three-time world champion explained what was the team's main program during the last afternoon of testing, where he excelled: “We have decided to let's not focus on the lap time. I believe it was more important to do the long runs and understand the car a little better – commented – we therefore concentrated on this program and, to be honest, I think everything has been quite positive. Are quite satisfied with the car and how it performed. And then, you know, as we get closer to the race weekend, it will be about fine-tuning the balance based on the circumstances that we will face during the weekend.”

The calm of the #1 in his meeting with the media at the end of the tests also revealed his total lack of concern about the opponent who could be closest to him in the first race weekend: “I just look at what we're doing here – he added – I think of course there is always a lot of work to do. You always want to do better, but I think the test was very positive and that we learned a lot from every single change made to the car. And we also know what we want to do for next week. And that's what we'll focus on.”