{"id":468058,"date":"2026-02-11T13:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468058\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:05:09","slug":"f1-bahrain-pre-season-test-max-verstappen-tops-opening-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468058\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Bahrain pre-season test: Max Verstappen tops opening morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> set the fastest time of Wednesday\u2019s morning session in Formula 1\u2019s Bahrain pre-season test.<\/p>\n

Shortly before 12pm local time \u2013 with the test\u2019s opening session taking place from 10am to 2pm \u2013 Verstappen set a 1m35.433s on soft tyres for Red Bull.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

As F1 switches to new technical regulations, this time is five-and-a-half seconds slower than Oscar Piastri<\/a>\u2019s 2025 pole position, a 1m29.841s.<\/p>\n

As it happened, Piastri took second place, just 0.169s away from Verstappen, in McLaren<\/a>\u2019s newly liveried MCL40.<\/p>\n

Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 George Russell<\/a> was third in 1m36.108s, with Lewis Hamilton<\/a> in fourth, exactly one second slower than Verstappen. The Ferrari<\/a> driver had a harmless spin in Turn 1.<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari\"Lewis<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari<\/p>\n

Esteban Ocon<\/a> made up the top five for Haas, with a 1m37.169s. Teams weren\u2019t seeking performance just yet, which explains the large gaps between cars.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Sixth- and seventh-placed Arvid Lindblad<\/a> and Carlos Sainz<\/a> covered more ground than anyone for Racing Bulls<\/a> and Williams<\/a>, with 75 and 77 laps respectively. This is a welcome boost for Williams, which had to skip the Barcelona shakedown two weeks ago due to delays in its new challenger\u2019s production.<\/p>\n

Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> took eighth position in a revamped Audi<\/a> R26 featuring radical new sidepods, which you can read more about here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cadillac\u2019s Valtteri Bottas<\/a> and Aston Martin\u2019s Lance Stroll<\/a> were ninth and 10th \u2013 another two cars whose liveries were recently revealed, with Adrian Newey\u2019s new creation running bare at Barcelona due to its late arrival.<\/p>\n

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Alpine<\/a>\u2019s A526 caused the only red flag of the day when Franco Colapinto<\/a> stopped on track. It\u2019s 11th and last in 1m40.330s, with the lowest lap count of all \u2013 28.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How much Cadillac spent on Super Bowl ad for its F1 livery reveal <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Renault slammed for \u201clies and betrayal\u201d as F1 site\u2019s future looks bleak <\/a><\/p>\n

F1 Bahrain pre-season test Day 1 morning results<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen<\/p>\n

Red Bull<\/p>\n

65<\/p>\n

1m35.433s<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri<\/p>\n

McLaren<\/a><\/p>\n

54<\/p>\n

1m35.602s<\/p>\n

+0.169s<\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

George Russell<\/p>\n

Mercedes<\/a><\/p>\n

56<\/p>\n

1m36.108s<\/p>\n

+0.675s<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton<\/p>\n

Ferrari<\/a><\/p>\n

52<\/p>\n

1m36.433s<\/p>\n

+1.000s<\/p>\n

5<\/p>\n

Esteban Ocon<\/p>\n

Haas<\/a><\/p>\n

64<\/p>\n

1m37.169s<\/p>\n

+1.736s<\/p>\n

6<\/p>\n

Arvid Lindblad<\/p>\n

Racing Bulls<\/p>\n

75<\/p>\n

1m37.945s<\/p>\n

+2.512s<\/p>\n

7<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz<\/p>\n

Williams<\/p>\n

77<\/p>\n

1m38.221s<\/p>\n

+2.788s<\/p>\n

8<\/p>\n

Gabriel Bortoleto<\/p>\n

Audi<\/p>\n

49<\/p>\n

1m38.871s<\/p>\n

+3.438s<\/p>\n

9<\/p>\n

Valtteri Bottas<\/p>\n

Cadillac<\/p>\n

49<\/p>\n

1m39.150s<\/p>\n

+3.717s<\/p>\n

10<\/p>\n

Lance Stroll<\/p>\n

Aston Martin<\/p>\n

33<\/p>\n

1m39.883s<\/p>\n

+4.450s<\/p>\n

11<\/p>\n

Franco Colapinto<\/p>\n

Alpine<\/a><\/p>\n

28<\/p>\n

1m40.330s<\/p>\n

+4.897s<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen set the fastest time of Wednesday\u2019s morning session in Formula 1\u2019s Bahrain pre-season test.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[37185,3846,49,48,3020,3021,578,576,577,3024,3023,932,1885,190837,592,3015,1882,82,1713],"class_list":{"0":"post-468058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-arvid-lindblad","9":"tag-bahrain","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-carlos-sainz","13":"tag-esteban-ocon","14":"tag-f1","15":"tag-formula-1","16":"tag-formula1","17":"tag-george-russell","18":"tag-lance-stroll","19":"tag-lewis-hamilton","20":"tag-max-verstappen","21":"tag-morning-session","22":"tag-oscar-piastri","23":"tag-racing-bulls","24":"tag-red-bull","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-valtteri-bottas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}