Alonso beats Red Bulls in second Bahrain practice

Fernando Alonso pipped pre-season favourites Red Bull to set the pace in practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth and Lewis Hamilton the fastest Mercedes in eighth, 0.636secs off the pace.

Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas, Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin and Pierre Gasly’s Alpine filled the gaps ahead of Hamilton.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was ninth fastest ahead of the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu. Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell was down in 13th and the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz 14th after making an error on his fastest lap.

On the race-simulation times later in the session, when teams run on heavy tanks to judge long-run pace, Verstappen was fastest, but again Alonso appeared competitive – running at the same pace as the Dutchman and quicker than Perez.

The caveat is that although the race runs are usually a better approximation of competitiveness than the one-lap pace, fuel loads are still uncertain to a degree.

Leclerc was the fastest Ferrari driver on race pace, but nearly a second a lap slower than Verstappen, and the Mercedes drivers slower again, and also behind Gasly and and Norris.

The session was relatively incident-free. McLaren’s rookie driver Oscar Piastri had a big lock-up when he saw Stroll’s Aston Martin in front of him late at the first corner, and Alonso abandoned a race run on the medium tyre when he locked up entering Turn 10.

The soft tyre was the preferred tyre for all drivers on the race runs, suggesting it will be used by most for the start of the race.