Verstappen tops the longruns, Russell less fast over longer distance

The second session on Friday is often dominated by the longruns. This was no different during the second weekend in Bahrain. And even though George Russell set the fastest time in FP2, he was a lot slower during the longruns.

The 22-year-old Briton drove nine laps on the soft tyres with an average time of 0:58.980, according to the analysis of Auto, Motor und Sport. More than half a second slower than the fastest man on the softs. That was Max Verstappen. In 12 laps he drove an average lap of 0:58.278. Alexander Albon is back in third place, slightly slower than Carlos Sainz. Valtteri Bottas was fifth.

The Red Bull Racing drivers are also doing very well on the medium tyres. Verstappen tops the list, followed by his team mate. With an average time of 0:57.814 Verstappen is even faster than he is on the soft tyres. Both Mercedes drivers opted not to do any longruns on the medium tyre.

Both Russell and Bottas chose to do a longrun on the hardest Pirelli compound. Bottas is just faster than his British teammate with 0:58,295, while Russell drives 0:58.316. The only other two drivers to do a longrun on the hard tyre were Kimi Raikkonen and Nicholas Latifi.