Overview
- Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli topped day two in Sakhir with a 1:32.803, edging McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by 0.058s, with Lewis Hamilton fourth for Ferrari.
- Max Verstappen restored Red Bull’s mileage with 139 laps and a 1:33.162, reinforcing strong straight-line speed from the new Ford-linked power unit after earlier reliability setbacks.
- George Russell set the previous day’s benchmark at 1:33.459 as Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull continued to trade fastest times at the sharp end.
- Drivers flagged the revised launch procedure as overly complex, with Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto calling starts “a chaos,” and Charles Leclerc noting the process remains tricky under the 2026 rules.
- Ferrari evaluated a rear-wing opening solution with an upper flap rotating up to 180°, while in F2 testing at Barcelona Noel León led day one (1:24.370), Rafael Câmara headed day two (1:23.630) and Alexander Dunne lost his laps for an underweight car.