F1
Bahrain 2 Trials – Day 1: Russell narrowly beats Piastri
© Jiri Krenek / DPPI
The Briton set the best time of the day with his Mercedes Benz W17, allowing the Brackley team to retain the best time of this 2026 pre-season. Russell was indeed two tenths faster than last week's best time, achieved by his teammate Kimi Antonelli.
The Silver Arrows completed 145 laps on Tuesday, during a day that went smoothly. Russell even snatched the distinction of driver with the most laps completed on Tuesday from Arvid Lindblad, with 76 laps before the practice start procedure, a practice that is expected to be repeated on Thursday and Friday evenings to develop the best possible procedure for the Australian Grand Prix.
Ten single-seaters were brought out of their garages for the occasion, all except theAston Martin de Lance strollThis brings to a close a particularly difficult day for the Silverstone team. After just 28 laps this morning for Fernando AlonsoLance Stroll was only able to complete 26 laps in the afternoon, having notably lost many minutes following a spin in the first hour of the second session of the day.
Having completed 13 laps in the morning, Isack Hadjar was able to improve his total somewhat in the afternoon, finishing with 66 laps completed in the Red BullThe Frenchman was hampered in the morning by mechanical problems with his car. The same was true for Cadillac, which once again took almost an hour to get its car ready. car on track this afternoon. Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas were only able to complete a total of 59 laps on this first day of the week.
The cars will be back on track this Thursday from 8am, and it will obviously be live on AUTOhebdo.fr.
F1 – Bahrain Tests 2 – Day 1
The results of the day
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Yves-Henri RANDIER
19/02/2026 at 07:11 a.m.
A 2/10 improvement compared to last week, nothing revolutionary! Are they holding anything back for Melbourne, especially since the engine regulations won't change until Zandvoort? As Vincent rightly points out, the gaps to the back of the grid remain enormous, light years away from the previous regulations which resulted in a very tight grid... By the way, is the 107% rule still in effect?
Little Pimousse
18/02/2026 at 09:04 a.m.
"The Briton set the fastest time of the day with his Mercedes W17, allowing the Woking-based team to maintain its best time in this 2026 pre-season." Wow, I didn't know Mercedes had moved near McLaren...
vincent moyet
18/02/2026 at 06:12 a.m.
The gaps are starting to close between the top four teams. However, they remain significant with the rest of the field, and at the very back, there's still a 4-second gap, a stark contrast to the 2025 grids where the gaps were within 1 second. It's clear that the last cars have the most room for improvement, particularly Aston Martin (what a fiasco considering the investment...) and Cadillac, which is more forgivable.