Although the day was noticeably less of a desert one than yesterday, the wind was still present during the start of the first session on day 2 of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Mercedes did not want to waste any more time on the second day of testing than they already did on the first and Lewis Hamilton was then the first driver to go out on track in Sakhir for the morning’s session. The world champion set the first time of 1:38.587. The German team did not show the number of problems presented yesterday and was able to ride relatively normally in today’s morning session until Hamilton spun and ended into the gravel at Turn 13, bringing out the red flag for a while.

RED FLAG: That one is on us! Lewis is beached in the gravel at Turn 13. pic.twitter.com/vuYOwV4fMR

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 13, 2021

One of the headlines of the day was the official comeback of Fernando Alonso driving the Alpine, the Spaniard was consistently pushing fastest lap out of fastest laps and gradually exchanged the top of the time table with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, both followed closely by Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari and Pérez with the Red Bull. The Alpine and the McLaren continued with the strong performance they showed during the first day at Sakhir and kept the first places of the standings, at least for now.

Another highlight was Sergio Pérez going out on the Red Bull all second day of testing after Max Verstappen took the whole of yesterday. Although the Dutchman was finally the fastest at the end of the two first sessions and was all praises to his team and his car, the Mexican managed to finish 3^rd with a time of 1:32.478, still trying to find the best out of a totally new team and environment with counted time.

At the end of the second morning, it was the Australian who kept at the top and repeated as the fastest with a time of 1:32.215, very similar to the 1:32.203 that he set yesterday as the fastest lap. Fernando Alonso came close behind 0.124 cents away with the Alpine and finally the Red Bull of Sergio Pérez completed the top three.

The ones with “most” problems were now Aston Martin and Sebastian Vettel with the German having bits of laps during the first two hours of the session until the team updated that he had a problem with the gearbox and finally managed to work in a total of 9 laps.

UPDATE: Sebastian’s car is currently in the garage due to an issue related to the gearbox. We've had limited running so far but we're working to get him back out soon. 🤜🤛 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/cXvldwX3PW

— Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) March 13, 2021

Tsunoda, Mazepin, Latifi, and Giovinazzi completed the morning driver line-up for the rest of the teams with plenty of laps and a good session. The Williams driver finished the fastest of the four and the Russian the one that managed to complete more laps with 75.

Teams will now head to lunch-break and then restart with the afternoon session from the second day of winter testing in Sakhir in over an hour.