Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz has topped the timing sheets in the third and final practice session for the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix. The session preceding the qualifying race was all about testing the softest compound of the tires which would be used by the entire grid later on the Friday afternoon.
The third practice session was split so that the first 30 minutes were mostly reserved for a long-run race simulation on the soft tires. The other 30 minutes signaled teams to bank on the fastest laps ahead of the first qualifying round of the 2024 campaign.
It is worth adding how teams hesitated to send their drivers out early into third practice as the temperature of the track and weather conditions would not be repeated for the qualifying and race. The track’s dustiness did not help in preparations for the most important events of the season’s first weekend.
The first half of the practice was notable for Sergio Perez’s problems with the up-shift which seemed to be fixed as time passed by. Staying within Red Bull’s realm, the reigning constructors’ championship duo both set early times on the hardest allocated tire, as the latter one is suggested to be a favorable tire option for Sunday’s race.
Lewis Hamilton, who set the first flying lap (14 minutes into the racing program) was found locking the brakes of his W15 machine into the T10 potentially damaging one set of the softest compound.
Less eventful practice concluded with teams doing qualifying runs. Track evolution helped drivers push each other from the top of the timesheets. Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and both Red Bull cars eventually were the quickest in the session until Ferrari’s Spaniard Carlos Sainz set a time of 1:30.824. Sainz was followed by his countryman Fernando Alonso, who was +0.141 slower. Max Verstappen managed to fare better than the first two outings of the season by finishing third.
Furthermore, the top ten drivers of the third practice session consisted of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, and Sergio Perez. The list of the ten quickest drivers was closed with Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.