F1 2023 season

0. Sakhir Testing

Day 2

Zhou Guanyu shot to the top of the timesheets in Bahrain, where Mercedes brought out a red flag as George Russell's W14 ground to a halt.

The morning saw Carlos Sainz set the early benchmark on C3 tires of 1m 32.486s, a time that stood at the top of the leaderboards until Max Verstappen emerged in the second session. The reigning champion shot to second with his first flying effort, and 30 minutes into the second session he was at the top.

Under the floodlights, Zhou eclipsed the Dutchman's time by 0.040s when he equipped the soft compound and rounded the circuit in 1m 31.610s, although though his session ended slightly prematurely as his car refused to enter first gear at the end of the pit lane with 10 minutes left.

Mercedes hit trouble just before the sun set, with George Russell (P13) coming to a stop with a hydraulic issue. The Briton did not return to action and tallied 26 laps in, after Lewis Hamilton set 72 laps for P15. The seven-time champion was briefly interrupted by some floor damage and the resulting repairs.

Fernando Alonso managed more than 130 laps and finished third overall for Aston Martin, ahead of Nyck de Vries in P4 and Haas's Nico Hulkenberg, fifth.

Sainz's stint saw him end up sixth on the board with 70 laps in the Ferrari, with teammate Charles Leclerc taking over to clock more than 60 laps and finish eighth overall.

Between the Ferraris was Williams' Logan Sargeant, who like Alonso and Zhou drove for the whole time. The rookie driver finished seventh and led the mileage stakes - more than 150 laps under his belt. Sargeant rolled into the pits with 15 minutes remaining and extricated the car, with what seemed to be an electrical issue.

It was later revealed that the team were having Sargeant practice exiting the car in the event of a problem, during which a small electrical issue did spring up.

Oscar Piastri finished ninth in the second session, with his teammate Lando Norris 16th overall after a productive first session.

Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10, 1.5s off the top spot, with Haas's Kevin Magnussen 11th and Gasly's teammate Esteban Ocon 12th after lapping 49 times in the first session.

Sergio Perez split the Mercedes, having set 76 laps in.

Rounding out the standings was AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda, who managed a session-high of 85 laps before handing the car over to Gasly.

Day 3

Sergio Perez set the fastest time of testing under the floodlights at the Bahrain International Circuit after Charles Leclerc topped the first session.

Leclerc's was set on C4 tires, and it stood until the floodlights were blazing over the track, when temperatures decreased and drivers fitted C4 and C5 compounds for short runs. Perez went top with a lap of 1m 30.305s on C4s - an effort that was faster than the pole time - as Leclerc dropped to fourth.

Lewis Hamilton has been at Mercedes, and used his W14 to take P2 in the second session, running the C5 tires.

The first session saw red flags fly as a and a few pieces of carbon fibre flew off Perez's Red Bull. The Mexican driver managed more than 130 laps over the whole weekend in another productive and largely trouble-free day for the champions, as Max Verstappen watched on from the pit wall.

Valtteri Bottas shot to third late on, using C5 tires, after.

Carlos Sainz finished fourth on C4s, while Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top five for AlphaTauri, using the same compound.

Kevin Magnussen was seventh (on C4s) in the Haas, while his new teammate Nico Hulkenberg finished 15th on C3s.

Behind Magnussen was C5-shod George Russell in eighth after his first session.

Felipe Drugovich took the wheel at Aston Martin to finish 10th on C5s, before Fernando Alonso returned to the car to take ninth on C4s. However, it wasn't all smooth sailing, with an issue cropping up around the car's rear suspension which required some repairs in the pits.

McLaren's wheel brows threatened to detach from the car, but the team said it was a "minor issue" that will be fixed for next weekend's opener. In the evening, Lando Norris finished 11th on C3s, while Oscar Piastri spun at Turn 9 on the way to P16.

Pierre Gasly drove in the first session and finished 12th before Esteban Ocon took over for P14 - between them the Williams of Alex Albon, who led the individual mileage charts with nearly 140 laps.

Nyck de Vries rounded out the standings for AlphaTauri as Logan Sargeant, Zhou Guanyu and Verstappen sat out, having finished their respective programmes.