Alfa Romeo’s Zhou sets the fastest time on Day 2 testing

Zhou Guanyu finished on the top of the timesheets on Friday evening in Bahrain pre-season testing.

During the session, Mercedes brought out a red flag as George Russell’s W14 ground to a halt with a problem.

In the morning Carlos Sainz set the early benchmark on the C3 tyres of 1.32.486m. In the afternoon, though, Max Verstappen emerged in the afternoon and set a faster time just 30 minutes into the practice.

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Under the lights, Zhou eclipsed the Dutchman’s time by 0.040s when he equipped the soft compound and rounded the circuit in 1.31.610m.

Mercedes hit trouble just before the sun set, when George Russell stopped on track with a hydraulic issue. Earlier his teammate Lewis Hamilton faced a floor damage, which was quickly taken care of.

Fernando Alonso managed more than 130 laps and finished third overall for Aston Martin, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries in P4 and Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg, fifth.