Bahrain Pre-Season Testing 2026 Week 2 Day 2 Round-Up: Antonelli Sets The Benchmark As Ferrari Innovate Again

Kimi Antonelli set the fastest lap of the 2026 pre-season on Thursday, a 1:32.803 that secured back-to-back days at the top for Mercedes after Russell led Day 1. Behind the headline, the paddock split in two directions. Ferrari doubled down on technical experimentation. Aston Martin managed just 68 laps with Alonso at the wheel. Verstappen quietly banked 139 for Red Bull, while McLaren led total team mileage at 158. One day of testing remains before Melbourne.

Key Points: Bahrain Pre-Season Testing 2026 Week 2 Day 2 Round-Up

• Antonelli sets the pre-season benchmark with a 1:32.803, 0.058s ahead of Piastri
• Verstappen P3 on 1:33.162, highest individual lap count of the day at 139
• Hamilton loses the morning to an SF-26 technical issue, recovers to 78 laps and P4 on 1:33.408
• Norris P5, his fastest lap set on C4 rather than the dominant C3
• Colapinto P6 using C5, best time from the softest compound all day at 1:33.818
• C5 used in a pre-season test for the first time across Alpine, Cadillac and Williams
• C3 remained dominant at 55% of total mileage across 1,311 laps
• Ferrari introduced a flip rear wing element that rotates inverted in straight line mode
• Alonso stopped on track triggering a red flag, completed just 68 laps
• Race start simulations completed at the end of both sessions

Track Activity: From First Light To The Flags

Norris set the morning reference early on a 1:34.625, with Verstappen briefly going quickest before the McLaren driver reclaimed the top spot on a 1:33.453. That time stood as the session benchmark through lunch.

The afternoon reshuffled everything. Hamilton was first out when the pit lane opened at 15:00 local time, making up for a morning that delivered just five laps due to a technical issue on the SF-26. Piastri took over the MCL40 and Antonelli climbed into the W17 as the temperature began to drop.

Verstappen moved back to the top with a 1:33.162, then Piastri went faster with 1:32.861 on C3 to briefly hold P1. Antonelli had the final word. His 1:32.803, set in the closing stages, is the quickest lap of the 2026 pre-season.

Colapinto delivered the standout lap on the C5, pulling a 1:33.818 from the softest compound in Pirelli’s range during the final hour. That put Alpine sixth overall.

Russell ran the full morning and posted 77 laps, more than any other driver in the pre-lunch session, before handing over to Antonelli. He ended the day P8 on 1:34.111, 1.308s off his team-mate. Hulkenberg was seventh for Audi, Ocon ninth and Lawson tenth despite Racing Bulls losing two hours of running in the morning. Lawson still completed 106 laps.

Albon ran all day for Williams, banking 117 laps despite a 90-minute stoppage. That kind of mileage despite disruption matters with one day left.

Ferrari gave the paddock a second consecutive day of technical conversation. Wednesday’s flow turning device drew attention from every engineering group in the pit lane. Thursday brought a flip rear wing element. Rather than moving to a flat position in straight line mode, the flap rotates completely upside down, creating a larger slot gap for air to pass through and generating greater drag reduction than a conventional flat position would achieve.

Both innovations trace back to the same design decision baked into the SF-26 from the start. Placing the differential the maximum 6cm behind the rear axle line opens a volume behind the diffuser that the regulations permit for additional bodywork. No other team can exploit it because no other team built their transmission architecture around it.

The wing flip is a different story. Ferrari ran it in public and rivals can copy it.

Reliability and Distance

Aston Martin could not stay out of the headlines for the wrong reasons.

Alonso stopped on track in the opening hour of the afternoon, triggering a red flag. He did not return. Sixty-eight laps, 4.669 seconds off the pace, and Stroll did not drive at all on Day 2.

That is back-to-back days of serious disruption for the AMR26. Day 1 brought a power unit problem and a beached car. Day 2 brought a trackside stoppage and a driver sitting out entirely. The conversations in the paddock are already starting. This is beginning to look less like Honda-Red Bull and more like Honda-McLaren for Alonso. A partnership that promised a lot and delivered frustration. Those comparisons will only get louder if Friday does not go well.

Cadillac needed Thursday to be different. It wasn’t. Perez completed 50 laps for P14. Bottas propped up the order in P16 on a 1:40.193, more than seven seconds off the benchmark. As a new works entry still finding its feet, lost running time is something they cannot afford. Friday is the last chance to bank meaningful mileage before the season starts. They need a clean day.

Hamilton managed 78 laps in total after losing the morning to a technical issue on the SF-26. A frustrating setback, but it sits within a wider Ferrari picture that looks more positive than the headlines suggest. Across the full pre-season they have looked strong, brought multiple specifications, and have been trialling different components with purpose. You only do that when you have a strong base to work from. This is not a team scrambling for answers. This is a team with enough confidence in the SF-26 to use the time deliberately.

Mercedes ran cleanly again. Antonelli’s 80 afternoon laps added to Russell’s 77 in the morning for 157 total. McLaren’s 158 across Norris and Piastri gave them the day’s highest team total.

Race start simulations ran at the end of both sessions. Piastri pulled to the side briefly at the close of the afternoon run before rejoining, though no concern was flagged.

Tyres and Data Picture

The C5 made its pre-season debut on Thursday. Alpine, Cadillac and Williams all ran the softest compound in the final hour, with Pirelli logging just 12 laps across the day. Colapinto’s 1:33.818 was the pick of those efforts.

For a full breakdown of how Pirelli planned compound allocation heading into this test, the Bahrain Pre-Season Testing Tyre Preview covers the baseline expectations in detail.

The C3 remained the platform everyone built their day around, accounting for 55% of the day’s 1,311 total laps at 729. C2 and C1 saw meaningful long-run work. Audi put 23 laps on the C1. Red Bull matched that on the C2. Albon ran 17 laps on a used set of C4, a deliberate exercise in understanding compound degradation rather than chasing time.

Norris was the only driver in the top five to set his benchmark on C4. Every other time in the leading group came on C3. Piastri posted the fastest laps on both C1 (1:36.576) and C2 (1:33.624), suggesting McLaren ran a more varied compound programme than most.

Track temperature peaked at 45°C. The drop in conditions late in the afternoon is when Antonelli and Piastri delivered their fastest laps, consistent with Day 1.

Coffee Corner Take

Antonelli. Fastest lap of pre-season. Nineteen years old. The headline writes itself.

Back-to-back clean days. Updates working. Antonelli’s benchmark at the end of it. The question worth asking is whether this is the start of something real. The FIA compression ratio e-vote settled one variable hanging over the whole field, at least for the opening phase of the season. Whether Mercedes have found genuine pace or are simply the best prepared team in February, that is too early to call. The direction of travel though. Worth watching.

Verstappen’s 139 laps is the number I keep coming back to. Red Bull did not come here to set headlines. They came to work, and whilst the rest of the paddock generated noise, they quietly ran through their programme. The only heat on them was coming from Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan’s heat gun, spotted checking the bodywork of the RB22. Red Bull will like that. Every lap here is data. That is how they operate and that is what makes them dangerous.

The Ferrari and Haas practice starts are worth a second look. Both cars off the line looking aggressive, loud, dramatic. Suddenly Ferrari’s resistance to changing the new start procedure makes a lot of sense. When your car and your customer team look like that off the line, you are not lobbying for a different process.

Two days, two innovations. Flow turning device Wednesday, flip rear wing Thursday. Creative thinking, no question. But this is testing. None of this is confirmed performance. The flip wing is copyable too. Ferrari ran it in public. What rivals do with that information between now and Melbourne is an open question. The diff placement loophole is the one to monitor across the season. But it still needs lap times to back it up. We are not there yet.

Colapinto’s C5 lap deserves a mention. 1:33.818 from the softest compound puts him sixth overall, though that context matters. The C5 is the softest tyre in Pirelli’s range and at these track temperatures it is going to struggle with degradation, grip dropping off quickly as the laps build. That time is not a direct performance comparison with the C3 runners above him. What it does show is a driver enjoying his first proper pre-season, settled in the car, adding laps consistently and extracting what the compound had to give. Alpine have been quietly building across this test. That is the real story here.

Aston Martin cannot afford to think about any of that right now. Alonso stopped on track. Stroll did not drive. Sixty-eight laps. 4.669 seconds off the benchmark. That is now three consecutive sessions where the AMR26 has failed to deliver a meaningful programme. One day of testing left and the reliability questions from Week One have not been answered because they have barely run enough laps to ask them properly.

One day left in Bahrain. The teams that have built their mileage and understood their cars know where they stand. The ones still firefighting are running out of time to find out.