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

Arvid Lindblad has just set a new F1 record for completing the most laps in a single day around the Bahrain International Circuit, racking up 163 in his Racing Bulls. 

Charles Leclerc has just gone for another lap but is unable to improve, despite setting a purple final sector. 

Gabriel Bortoleto stretches the legs of the Audi on C3 tyres to break into the top-10 and go ninth with a tidy lap. 

Pierre Gasly, on the softest C5 tyre, goes fifth for Alpine with a 1m33.421s. 

Max Verstappen also puts in an attacking lap. It's a 1m33.109s from the Red Bull driver, who leapfrogs George Russell into P3 on the prototype tyre. That's still 0.812s off Charles Leclerc's benchmark. 

Ollie Bearman has done his best lap of the afternoon with a 1m33.487s, which moves the Haas driver up to fifth in the timesheet. 

On the C4 tyre, Arvid Lindblad improves his time with a 1m34.149s to put his Racing Bulls eighth. 

Lindblad has completed the most laps of any driver today, racking up a mammoth 154 and counting. 

George Russell moves up to third with a 1m33.197s. 

Cadillac are rock-bottom of the timesheets on the final day of pre-season testing, with Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez down in 15th and 16th respectively and over six seconds off the pace. 

Performance runs clearly aren't the focus for F1's newest team today. Bottas has only completed 22 laps so far this afternoon, after Cadillac faced some electrical issues on his car. 

Big moment for Charles Leclerc! 

He was on a good lap on fresh tyres as he set a purple first sector, but had a huge slide coming out of Turn 11. Leclerc has to give the lap up after desperately trying to hang on to his Ferrari. 

Lando Norris, on a fresh set of C3 tyres, improves to close to within 0.216s of Charles Leclerc. 

There's more time in that McLaren for sure, with Norris having a wobble early in the lap. 

That is the new fastest time of F1 2026 pre-season testing so far. 

Charles Leclerc's best lap betters the Kimi Antonelli's previous benchmark of a 1m32.803s by a couple of tenths. 

Improvements from Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

First Verstappen goes P2, 0.445s off Charles Leclerc with the fastest first sector of anyone. 

Seconds later, Verstappen is shuffled down to third as Norris goes ahead to claim second.

The world champion is 0.211s away from the outright quickest time. 

Lando Norris, on the same C3 tyres used by his rivals, goes fourth-fastest with a lap that leaves the world champion 0.837s down on the outright quickest time. 

Max Verstappen jumps up to P2 with a 1m33.866s to go 0.704s behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. 

George Russell moves up to third with a personal best lap time of the day. He’s 1.061s off the pace after that C3 effort in his Mercedes.

World champion Lando Norris takes to the track in his McLaren for the first time this afternoon, having missed the opening two hours of the session.