Day 3 of first F1 2026 Bahrain pre-season test as it happened

The day ends with a practice start which did not go all that smoothly. Franco Colapinto nearly found the barriers as he lined up on the grid, before his Alpine hit anti-stall shortly after pulling away from his grid box.

That was all a bit messy! 

We are into the final 20 minutes of the session. Will we get any late changes? 

Oscar Piastri has breached 150 laps today in the McLaren. His tally is now 153, which is about 20 laps shy of three full race distances at Bahrain.

Even after three full days of running here, drivers still struggling with lock-ups into Turn 10. 

Aston Martin has been working on an issue it saw on the data of the power unit, with Stroll now heading out for the final 42 minutes of the session.

The Cadillac livery looks great, but every time the car is on track, the half-black, half-white front wing requires a double-take just to make sure it hasn't suffered damage!

Alex Albon has jumped up to 10th with a 1m36.793s. 

Hamilton is out there on hard tyres for a race sim. The Ferrari received some new parts yesterday, like a floor and front wing, and it seems to be going pretty well. 

Ferrari, incidentally, is about the only team who hasn't waded into the sandbagging debate. Who knows, maybe this is the year. 

Ocon has just improved to sixth in the Haas. Not sure why he couldn't have done that before we published our updated times, but whatever...

Lewis Hamilton is back out in the Ferrari and looks to be completing a race simulation, having just pitted for hard tyres following a 19-lap stint on softs. 

Isack Hadjar with another improvement that sees him move into sixth and behind Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen. The Frenchman is still more than two seconds off the outright pace. 

Incidentally, I checked with Mercedes earlier as to why Kimi Antonelli had taken so long to come out this afternoon, following the reliability issues they encountered on day two. 

"We love to tease!" came the light-hearted response from a Mercedes spokesperson. Is that what the team are doing currently with this 1-2 at the top of the timesheet?

Looks like we are finally starting to see some performance running from Mercedes.

Kimi Antonelli's lap puts him 0.249s clear of Mercedes teammate George Russell, and over half a second ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton heading towards the final 90 minutes of track action on the last day of the opening Bahrain test. 

Antonelli has gone even quicker, posting a 1m33.669s!

Verstappen accused Mercedes of extreme sandbagging earlier. 

Mercedes is now 1-2 on the timesheets. Make of that what you will. 

Kimi Antonelli takes the Mercedes to top spot with a 1m33.900s, pipping team-mate Russell by 0.018s.