Zhou Guanyu tops second day of F1 testing as Mercedes suffer hydraulic failure

Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu topped the timing board on day two of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain, four hundredths of a second ahead of defending champion Max Verstappen.

Carlos Sainz topped the morning session but it was Verstappen who was once again on the pace in the afternnoon, setting a time of 1:31.650 on the C3 tyres.

The time looked to be the best of the day until Zhou emerged in the evening on a set of the softest C5 tyres and bested Verstappen with a lap of 1:31.610.

“Lap times in testing are of limited value, but the team can take great encouragement by the good mileage racked up by Zhou Guanyu, who completed 132 lap of the Bahrain International Circuit,” said a team spokesperson.

“We are well aware this is testing, of course, and everyone is trying different settings, but it feels nice to see my name and that of the team up there in the timing sheets,” said Zhou.

“It’s been a positive day overall, we got more mileage in and went through all the targets and tasks we had set for ourselves, so I can say I am happy.”

“The car felt reasonably good, both in daytime and night-time conditions, and I felt more confident pushing as the day progressed.”

“Today was the final day of pre-season testing for me, and I am very much looking forward to the start of the season next week.”

“I feel ready and excited about the new campaign and I can’t wait to be racing again.”

Fernando Alonso was third-fastest for Aston Martin, also on the C3 tyre, with Nyck De Vries fourth-fastest and the quickest rookie, driving for AlphaTauri on the slightly-softer C4 compound.

Sainz was the fastest Ferrari driver, sixth-fastest overall after topping the morning session, while Aussie Oscar Piastri was ninth after another day of mixed running for McLaren.

Despite a solid day of running on Thursday it was Mercedes who faced the worst technical dramas on Friday, with a hydraulic issue limiting George Russell to just 26 laps.

“We've got some investigations going on to understand why this has been such a challenge today when yesterday it was fairly straight forward,” said trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.

“That work will continue into the night and no doubt we'll understand more come the morning.”

“It will be interesting tomorrow to see if we can understand the drop in performance and mitigate the lost track time.”

Russell was 13th-fastest, with teammate Lewis Hamilton 15th-fastest.

“Even though we didn't complete our full programme, we uncovered some interesting things in the data throughout the day,” said Russell.

“That is a positive and we will analyse these overnight with the aim of finding lap time.”

“We haven't unlocked everything yet in the W14 and everyone is working hard to do so and maximise our final day of testing tomorrow.”