George Russell continued to impress tonight at Bahrain International Circuit

George Russell continued to impress tonight at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), going fastest once again under the Friday night lights to top Formula 1’s Second Practice timesheet in the Rolex Sakhir Grand Prix.

Russell is substituting for seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton for the weekend’s events, but the fact that today was his debut drive for Mercedes mattered little to him.

Russell powered to a best lap time of 54.713 seconds, going 0.128s quicker than Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing while completing 48 laps around BIC’s 3.543-kilometre Outer Track.

Russell’s second practice time was just under two-tenghts of a second off his leading time of 54.546s from the first practice.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez placed third on the timesheet 0.153s off Russell’s pace, while Renault’s Esteban Ocon followed in fourth, Alexander Albon in the other Red Bull car in fifth, and Daniil Kvyat for AlphaTauri sixth.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo completed the top eight.

The rest of the classification from ninth to 20th, respectively: Gasly, Sainz, Bottas, Raikkonen, Giovinazzi, Magnussen, Latifi, Vettel, Norris, Fittipaldi, Aitken and Leclerc.

The F1 field now headed to a third practice session Saturday, to be held over 60 minutes, starting at 5pm. Qualifying will then follow at 8pm, setting the stage for Sunday’s 87-lap race.

The Rolex Sakhir Grand Prix is the second event of the Kingdom’s first-ever F1 double-header. It is the 16th and penultimate round of the 2020 season.