Perez most productive at final F1 test day, session redflagged twice

Three drivers on loan

Technically, the season is not over yet. Some drivers who are currently testing cars with their new teams still have contracts with their teams from this year. Fernando Alonso is testing today for Aston Martin but is still under contract with Alpine. His successor Pierre Gasly does drive for the French team today even though he actually still has commitments with AlphaTauri. His place at the Red Bull sister team will be taken over today by Nyck de Vries who is still a test driver for Mercedes. A special deal has been struck for these three drivers: they get to drive for the new teams but in a different way than usual. Alonso's Aston Martin has no sponsor brands on it, as does Gasly's racing suit. Also, none of the three are allowed to interact with the media around the circuit.

Oscar Piastri has also gone early to his new team to test for McLaren. In his case, Alpine did not set any preconditions: the Australian was simply allowed to test for McLaren today without any special arrangement.

Already two red flags

It was a rather rough start for Piastri, though. His car had a small problem that forced him to stop it and, as a precaution, the FIA immediately closed the entire track. A second red flag followed not long after because of debris on the track. In both cases, the problems were quickly resolved and testing could resume.

Piastri was not the only one with problems: Nico Hülkenberg also struggled with technical issues. The brand-new Haas driver made his first metres in the American car today but had to leave the car in the pit box for much of the morning due to the problems.

Perez most productive, Verstappen in action this afternoon

For Red Bull, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez alternate responsibilities today, while test driver Liam Lawson takes to the track in the other car to gain experience. Perez was given the morning for his account and immediately made good use of it. The Mexican drove no less than 88 laps on track, thirty more than last Sunday's race had. De Vries also put his time to good use, driving a whopping 68 laps.

The fastest time of the morning was for Charles Leclerc, although that is not saying too much. The cars are set for testing and so are considerably slower than during the race or qualifying. The fastest time at the moment stands at 1:25:4, which is a second and a half slower than the time with which Verstappen captured pole position this weekend.