Bahrain Testing - Day 2: a Williams on fire, Ocon in the lead at midday

At the end of a busy morning, Esteban Ocon stood out with the best time, while wearing the famous pink livery ofAlpine for the first time. The session was also marked by the setbacks of Williams and Latifi, whose car caught fire.

Published on 11/03/2022 à 12:05

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Bahrain testing – Day 2: a Williams on fire, Ocon in the lead at midday

Esteban Ocon went out on the track with the pink livery ofAlpine for the first time - Photo Diederik Van Ver Laan / DPPI

This second day of driving was an opportunity to finally see Alpine at the forefront, although these positions are little revealing. But for the first time, the A522 came out dressed all in pink – the livery in the colors of title sponsor BWT will be lined up during the first two Grands Prix of the season – and allowed Esteban Ocon to monopolize the top of the timesheet (1'34"270), on soft tyres, ahead of a Charles Leclerc (+ 0″090) on medium tires and the discreet world champion, Max Verstappen (+1″598), on hard compounds this time.

La Williams de Latifs caught fire

The morning was also punctuated by several incidents, the most significant of which was attributed to Nicholas Latifi's Williams. Already plagued by flat bottom problems at the start of the session, the Canadian finally took to the track after spending long minutes waiting in the garage. But his day quickly took an unexpected turn, when the overheating of his rear brakes caused a major fire and a rupture of his left rear suspension. Williams' day seems compromised given the damage to the car of a Latifi author of only twelve little tours. The team announced that it would review its “ road plan after having assessed the repair work to be carried out”.

From initial investigations, it appears that the issue that caused the fire was quite minor, but became visibly quite dramatic. It is not as severe as the video footage might suggest, but there is fire damage to the rear of the car that the team needs to repair. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/xRJVcJSwbW

- Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) March 11, 2022

The other incident of the morning is to the credit of Sebastian Vettel. The German nevertheless completed the laps of the track at a decent pace but after 43 laps a first alert at the exit of the pits slowed down the quadruple world champion, who was subsequently forced to immobilize his AMR22 at the end of the first sector. The pilot Aston Martin was however able to return to the track, before the FIA brought out the red flag to revise its procedures.

Note that Haas, after experiencing delivery problems at the start of the week, had to end its morning session earlier than planned due to incidents with the VF21's exhausts. Mick Schumacher, which will give way to Kevin Magnussen this Friday afternoon, was only able to complete 23 laps.

After four days of driving, the ten drivers on track are preparing (in part) to give up their place for the second driving session of the day. See you at 13 p.m. to conclude this second day of testing in Bahrain to always follow in live text with AUTOhebdo.