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Carlos Sainz Jr. was positive after finishing second fastest on the penultimate day of pre-season testing on Friday, although he admitted it was a bit of a strange afternoon due to ever-changing track conditions at the Bahrain International Circuit.

For much of the afternoon, the Scuderia Ferrari driver had looked as though he would top the time charts, only for Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen to jump to the top during their additional hour on track given to them following freight delays.

However, Sainz enjoyed a strong day, completing sixty laps despite the track conditions changing across the day, mainly due to the strong winds that were blowing across the Bahraini circuit.  He also says that despite the positive running, there are still things he wants to test on the final day on Saturday.

“A bit of a strange afternoon with track conditions changing a lot from run to run, especially the strong wind which made it difficult to be consistent on the short runs and to get a good understanding of each compound and how they compared to one another,” said Sainz.

“We will analyse everything tonight and prepare a good run plan for tomorrow, as there are quite a few things I still want to test on the last day. In general, another positive day for the team.”

Valtteri Bottas’ pre-season testing programme continues to be plagued by issues, with the Finn managing only twenty-five laps on day two of the second test at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday.

The Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN driver has seen many of his planned sessions across both tests affected by reliability, and Friday’s running was significantly impacted by lengthy stays in the pit garage, with his run ending with a problem that left him stranded on track.

Despite the setbacks, Bottas says he has been learning more and more about the C42-Ferrari during the test days, and he hopes for a clear final day before the season starts in earnest next weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix.

“I was able to learn a lot about the car yesterday, and the process continued today,” said Bottas.  “Obviously, it’s always tricky during the morning session here, with the hot track and the strong wind, but we were able to get some tests done, even with a few technical niggles reducing our mileage.

“We continue the process of learning about the C42 and: I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow for the last day of testing: we need a clean session so that we can focus on set-up work and fine-tuning our machinery ahead of the first race of the season.”

Kevin Magnussen was happy to be back behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again on Friday, with the Dane surprising many in the paddock by setting the best time of the day at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Magnussen was only drafted into the Haas F1 Team earlier this week as a replacement for the released Nikita Mazepin, and he completed his first laps behind the wheel of the VF-22 on Friday afternoon.

With Haas allowed an additional hour on track after they were forced to miss the morning session on day one because of freight delays, Magnussen used that hour effectively, jumping from ninth in the standings to the very top, just over three-tenths of a second clear of Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

“It was so good to be back in a Formula 1 car and so good to be back with the team – I think it went really well,” said Magnussen, who completed sixty laps on Friday.  “We had a good day of testing.

“I spent the first couple of runs getting back up to speed with a Formula 1 car but other than that it felt like I hadn’t been away. I could feel my neck at the end of it though – it kind of broke – but that’s expected.

Justin Lofton and Gene Hirst are the only drivers to win the Mint 400 three times. Lofton’s prospects of adding a fourth grew more favourable on Friday when he set the fastest overall time in qualifying.

The winner in 2015, 2016, and 2019, Lofton crushed Friday’s qualifying session when his #41 Unlimited Truck set a time of 3:59.349. He was the only driver in the entire field to surpass the four-minute mark as second-placed Kevin Thompson was at 4:01.770. Defending race winner Rob MacCachren qualified fourth.

“Excited be to starting 1st on our quest for a 4th Mint 400 win,” wrote Lofton on social media. “Truck worked flawlessly this afternoon and have lots of confidence in it for tomorrow race! See everyone at the start line.”

Qualifying was split into two groups, with Unlimited Truck SPEC and Classes 7 and 10 being in the first while Unlimited Truck, Unlimited Truck Legends, and Class 1 comprised the second.

The first group’s session was led by Unlimited Truck SPEC’s Carey Chrisman at 4:23.207. Jeff Proctor, who won the 2019 race in Class 7200, topped Class 7 at 4:30.360. Class 10’s pole was won by Preston Brigman with a time of 4:43.854 as he aims for another Mint win after last doing so in 2020. Bryce Patrick of Class 10 was the only driver to not set a time.

MBM Motorsports has fielded the #66 for J.J. Yeley across the first three NASCAR Xfinity Series races including Saturday’s upcoming Phoenix Raceway event, though the team did not formally confirm until the night before that he will indeed run the full 2022 season.

In a late Friday night Facebook post, team owner Carl Long wrote, “We have been in such a rush to prepare cup and xfinity cars , I did not take the time to post that the week before Daytona , MBM made a deal to put JJ Yeley in our 66 car all year!

“We will race the 13 some this year with Chad,, Timmy, Stan , and possibly Johnny or me (carl)!

“We are happy the way our xfinity program is developing. We are making improvements each week. We are focusing on making the 66 the best we can, while having fun and enjoying what we do with the 13 .

“The cup cars are a challenge with our limited resources. We do have a make up race for Bumper.com at COTA with Boris Said driving. Then the 55 Hex.com returns at Talladega with JJ Yeley. Other cup races are in discussions.”

Lando Norris took on the second day of testing at Bahrain International Circuit for the McLaren F1 team, as teammate Daniel Ricciardo continues to recover from his illness, which was confirmed to be COVID-19. Putting in a best time of 1:34.609, Norris landed about 1.4 seconds off leader Kevin Magnussen for 8th on the timesheet.

Norris’ McLaren was cause for a red flag in the morning, as the car stopped on its way out of the pit lane. The issue was not major, as Norris was able to get back to running soon after. The team ultimately completed 60 laps by the day’s end. Norris lamented the windy conditions and minor technical issues, but said that the team was able to take advantage of the day’s running nonetheless.

“It’s been as good a day as it could be. There’s still a few problems that we’re working to resolve so, again, we made the most of what we could today. I don’t have a feeling for the longer runs yet, but on the short runs we’ve made some improvements again and did further aero tests. It’s been difficult with the wind changing so much and the sand getting blown onto the track. Despite the challenges we’ve made the most of what we could do today,” Norris said. 

Executive Technical Director James Key said the team were able to rebound from the technical problems, as their test programme went on smoothly from there. The team hopes to up their mileage tomorrow before the final stretch until the season’s opening weekend. 

“We had a bit of a slow start this morning, recovering from a couple of issues on our car. However, this stabilised and when we got going, we learned a lot from our time on track. The setup work we’ve done has been productive and interesting, given how different this circuit is to Barcelona. We ran through a programme of test items, which went well and as predicted, and undertook further aerodynamic measurements,” Key said.

Kevin Magnussen set the fastest time on the second day of the Bahrain pre-season test. Magnussen set the time after the chequered flag as the Haas F1 team had an extended session after they lost the morning session on the first day.

Magnussen returned to Formula 1 as a late replacement for the axed Nikita Mazepin. The Dane took over testing duties in the afternoon session from Mick Schumacher who finished in twelfth position.

Carlos Sainz went fastest during the regular session on the second day of the final pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir in Bahrain. The Spaniard finished ahead of Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll.

Magnussen with a lap time of 1m33.207s was 0.325 seconds quicker than Sainz. The time was set in the extended hour of testing for the Haas F1 team. The team will start the final day of testing two hours early and test for an extra hour at the end of the day to make up for the four hours they lost on the opening day due to a freight delay.

The day was disrupted with a number of red flags. Esteban Ocon set the fastest time in the morning session which was good for sixth overall on the time charts.

Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team completed a successful second day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell getting behind the wheel of the W13.

It was Russell who completed the morning session with Hamilton getting into the car in the afternoon. The morning saw Russell work on long-run performance of the W13, whereas Hamilton worked through various setups in the afternoon. Russell completed 67 laps, twenty more than Hamilton managed. As well as the incredibly innovative no sidepod-sidepods, the W13 is appearing to be incredibly reliable.

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, recognises that the apparent strong reliability of the W13, has helped the team work through their daily programmes successfully.

“A packed day with a mix of work on low and high fuel as we continue to learn about the car and tyres. We’re exploring a range of setup options to try and improve the bouncing – we have some directions that are able to improve this but finding the right balance between the bouncing and performance is clearly the challenge.

“We’ve got a similar programme planned for tomorrow, but Lewis will do the higher fuel work and George the low fuel. We still have lots of work ahead of us but the car has been running reliably which has helped us get good mileage in and run our programme.”

It was World Champion Max Verstappen behind the wheel of the RB18 for Oracle Red Bull Racing, on the second day of the Official Pre-Season Test at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Verstappen completed 86 laps during what was a stop-start day, due to numerous red flags throughout the days running. By the end of it the Dutchman was sat in second spot, after posting a 1:34.011. The highlight of Verstappen’s day though came in a great little battle with Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr, giving fans hope that these new cars will be capable of overtaking.

Verstappen is pleased with how the day went and thoroughly enjoyed his mini-battle with Sainz Jr.

“I think we did as good a job as we could today, it was very warm and there were quite a few red flags. It was quite a good day, all pretty standard and we put quite a good amount of laps on the car. We won’t really use these tyre compounds for the race so again, it’s not really representative.

“It was fun to have a little battle with Carlos, I think he was on a long run with more fuel and I was on a shorter run and once I caught him he started using DRS, I think he wanted to race as well. So far the car is pretty good but there are always areas to work on.”

With no NASCAR Camping World Truck Series this weekend, Hailie Deegan is returning to her roots. Although her career trajectory in the past five years has brought her into pavement racing, she will head back to the off-road world when she contests the Mint 400 for the first time. She will pilot a Brethel Industries-built truck in the Unlimited Truck SPEC class with former NASCAR driver and boyfriend Chase Cabre as co-driver.

The daughter of X Games great Brian Deegan followed in her father’s footsteps by competing in dirt bikes and short course off-road racing in her youth. The California native ascended through the ranks in the now defunct Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, beginning in Junior Karts and reaching Pro Lite trucks when she began her transition to pavement racing. During her LOORRS career, she won the 2013 Junior 2 Karts and 2016 Mod Karts championships; Deegan was one of four women to win a LOORRS class title alongside Corry Weller, Kali Kinsman, and Megan Mitchell.

Deegan moved to stock cars in 2017 by racing in the CARS Super Late Model Tour before going to NASCAR’s regional divisions. A 2017 class member of NASCAR Next and three-time race winner in the ARCA Menards Series West, she quickly drew attention for her status as a successful regional female driver and her social media presence.

She also touts a particularly aggressive driving style that stems from her off-road days, with one ARCA West win coming after she spun her team-mate. This fast yet rather loose mannerism is not new among drivers who made the jump from off-road, where races are shorter and therefore more frenetic, to stock cars; for example, 2020 Truck Series champion Sheldon Creed frequently showed quick pace in his early stock car career that was marred by inconsistency before wrangling in his behaviour over time. While Deegan has openly embraced her aggressiveness, her studenthood in Ford Performance‘s driver development programme intends to help her better adjust to life in NASCAR.

Her Truck Series rookie campaign with David Gilliland Racing in 2021 concluded with a seventeenth-place points finish and a seventh at Gateway, the first Truck top ten for a female driver outside of a superspeedway. While an underwhelming campaign considering the hype surrounding her, a lack of practice and qualifying sessions due to COVID-19 restrictions meant she had to learn on the fly in races. Nevertheless, she won Most Popular Driver honours at season’s end. Two races into 2022, she is twenty-seventh in points with a seventeenth at Daytona and thirty-third at Las Vegas (the latter, in the same city as the Mint 400, following a crash).

Having missed the opening two days of running, Daniel Ricciardo will miss the final day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit after testing positive for COVID-19.

The Australian had been feeling unwell coming into the test and the McLaren F1 Team opted to put Lando Norris in the car for both Thursday and Friday’s running.

He has been doing regular coronavirus tests and was coming up negative, only to come up positive on Friday evening.  This means Norris will remain in the car again on Saturday, the final day of pre-season testing.

Ricciardo is expected to be fit and ready for next weekend’s opening round of the season at the Bahrain International Circuit, with the team already confirming he is beginning to show signs of feeling better. He will go into the race weekend on the back foot though as he has not completed any laps this week.

“McLaren Racing can confirm that after feeling unwell from Wednesday onwards in Bahrain, Daniel Ricciardo has now returned a positive PCR test for covid-19,” read a statement on Friday.  “Daniel is therefore continuing to isolate in accordance with local regulations. 

The BWT Alpine F1 Team unleashed their special pink livery on the second day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, with Frenchman Esteban Ocon behind the wheel for the entire day.

Ocon enjoyed Alpine’s best day of pre-season testing so far, completing an impressive 111 laps, with the best of those being a 1:34.276, fifth best of the day.

Ocon was very pleased with the progress made with the A522, on what was by far the team’s best day of pre-season so far.

“Today was our best day of pre-season testing so far with very good progress made and good understanding gained on the A522. We ran through a busy programme pretty much to plan, which is very important at this stage of the test. It’s been solid and I’m happy with the work completed today.

“The next time I’m in the car will be next Friday for the first Practice session of the season. This is when it all really counts so I’m looking forward to doing it all for real. Hopefully Fernando can continue the good work tomorrow and finish our preparations for the season as best as possible.”

Kevin Magnussen utilised the extra hour given to the Haas F1 Team at the end of day two of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit to post the fastest time of the day, jumping to the top ahead of Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

Magnussen, who earlier this week was announced as Nikita Mazepin’s replacement at Haas after the Russian was dropped as a result of his countries invasion of Ukraine and the backlash that followed, used Pirelli’s C4 tyre to post a lap of 1:33.207, three-tenths of a second better than that posted by Sainz.

Haas had been given an extra hour after losing all of Thursday morning’s running due to their freight running late and arriving well after it was meant to at the circuit.  They will also have additional running on Saturday as well.

The day was punctuated by numerous red flags, with Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi perhaps the most exciting of them as he suffered a spin following a fire surrounding his right-rear brake area.  The Canadian played fire marshal, with the tyre exploding before the fire was put out.  He could only complete twelve laps across the day as a result of the fire and the subsequent repairs the team needed to perform.

There were three further red flags in the afternoon session, with Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris both causing stoppages, while Valtteri Bottas brought the regular session to an early end as he also stopped on track.

On the second day of the Official Pre-Season Test at the Bahrain International Circuit, it was Yuki Tsunoda behind the wheel of the AT03 for Scuderia AlphaTauri.

The young Japanese driver completed an impressive 120 laps across the day, a strong performance by the likeable driver. Whilst timings are somewhat irrelevant during testing, Tsunoda’s best time on the day was a 1:36.802, which saw him finish tenth place at the end of the second day of testing.

Tsunoda enjoyed the day and believes he learnt a lot about how to drive the car in different conditions, the wind played a strong part during the second day.

“It’s been a good day of running with a lot of laps and important mileage completed, allowing us to collect crucial data. We didn’t focus a lot on performance runs today, we had a race simulation where we concentrated on our long running and got to understand the car more in race conditions. It was really windy out there, with the direction changing throughout the day, so I had to learn more about driving this new car with all the different conditions we had, it was quite hard to adapt to this, but I really enjoyed it.

“I think overall the day has been positive, we still have some areas to work on, but I think we’ve got a good baseline and I’m looking forward to some more driving tomorrow. We still need to work a lot on the final day so that we can be confident going into the first race, and hopefully have a good result.”

In blockbuster news, the world’s leading car auction house RM Sotheby have announced that at their Monaco auction on May 14th, an original collection of Nigel Mansell cars will be on offer! The collection which have come from Mansell himself, contain two of the most famous Formula 1 cars to ever be offered at auction.

The two key vehicles in the collection are the 1989 Ferrari 640, in which the British driver won two races that year, plus the incredible 1991 Williams FW14, chassis number five, in which Mansell won five Grand Prix’s and is famously the car that has become known as the British GP winning ‘Senna Taxi’.

It will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to bid on an original F1 car which has come directly from not only the owner but also the driver of said car. Both cars have been kept in mint condition by Mansell, to the point where they look brand-new! Of course the Ferrari 640 will attract significant attention from the ultimate motorsport collectors, due to the immense V12 engine in the back of the 640. Incredibly the 640 was also the first-ever Ferrari F1 car to feature a semi-automatic gearbox and also to be launched to the press without Enzo Ferrari significantly, Ferrari died in April 1988.

The 1989 season had actually begun poorly for Mansell, who was at the time in his first season with Ferrari. Mansell and the team suffered a difficult pre-season and were less than optimistic ahead of the opening race of the season in Brazil. Mansell qualified in sixth for the race, three places below team-mate at the time Gerhard Berger. The race however was a completely different story, the World Champion driver made his way through the field, overtaking the likes of the great Ayrton Senna, on his way to a debut win for Ferrari.

Unfortunately the car’s reliability was poor as the season progressed, Mansell would still go on to win another race in Hungary however, where he qualified in 12th position but overtook the entire grid to win at the Hungaroring, recording the fastest lap and pulling a famous overtake on Senna on his way to the front of the field.