Trident’s Maloney tops first day of F3 testing in Bahrain

Maloney took to the top in the afternoon session at the Bahrain International Circuit with a 1m47.614s.

The Barbadian rookie showed impressive pace during the first day of running in Bahrain ahead of the season opener at the same venue in just over two weeks.

Fellow rookie William Alatalo finished second for Jenzer, just over a tenth shy of Maloney’s benchmark time.

Jak Crawford was third for reigning champions Prema with a 1m47.799s.

The Red Bull-backed junior will be entering his second season in the series and will be fancying his chances of a strong season.

The second Trident of Roman Stanek and Van Amersfoort Racing’s rounded out the top five.

Victor Martins was sixth for ART Grand Prix, just over 0.3s off the leader’s pace.

Arthur Leclerc, Reece Ushijima, Oliver Bearman and Gregoire Saucy rounded out the top 10 on day one in Bahrain.

Leclerc topped the morning session for Prema before finishing seventh overall in the afternoon.

The afternoon session was relatively smooth but it was red-flagged with a minute to go after Ushijma and David Vidales came to a halt on track. 

Isack Hadjar was 11th for Hitech Grand Prix ahead of Kaylen Frederick.

Alexander Smolyar returns to the series with MP Motorsport, ending the day in 13th ahead of Francesco Pizzi of Charouz and Trident’s Jonny Edgar.

Pepe Marti was the lead Campos in 16th, finishing ahead of Jenzer’s Patrik Pasma, MP’s Kush Maini and Ido Cohen.

Williams F1 academy driver Zak O'Sullivan completed the top 20.