Alonso keeps up the practice pace in Bahrain

Fernando Alonso maintained his strong pace for Aston Martin today and topped the timesheet for the second successive Formula 1 practice at the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2023 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

Alonso registered a fastest lap of one minute 32.340 seconds to pip double world champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing by just five-thousandths-of-a-second to first in the final classification of the weekend’s third hour-long practice session.

Sergio Perez was a close third just 0.106s off Alonso’s mark. Lewis Hamilton came fourth for Mercedes 0.215s behind, while Charles Leclerc for Ferrari was fifth 0.284s adrift.

George Russell in the other Mercedes challenger ranked sixth 0.579s from Alonso, while Lance Stroll (+0.579s) in the second Aston Martin and Carlos Sainz (+0.605s) for Ferrari completed the top eight.

McLaren rookie Oscar Piasri (+0.705s) was ninth and Pierre Gasly (+0.724s) for Alpine 10th.
Rounding out the classification were Esteban Ocon of Alpine, Zhou Guanyu of Alfa Romeo, Lando Norris of McLaren, the Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas, Williams rookie Logan Sargeant and teammate Alexander Albon, and AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries.

The first F1 qualifying session of the season follows at 6pm this evening.