2026 Bahrain Pre-Season Testing – Week 2 – Day 1 Recap

The Frenchman clocked 65 laps in the morning session working through a variety of baseline set-ups as the early morning fog, and cooler conditions, that greeted teams on arrival burned away and the sunshine peaked the air temperature at 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by the lunch break. Ocon set a fastest lap of 1:36.418 and utilized sets of Pirelli’s C2 and C3 tires during his run-plan.

Ollie Bearman assumed driving duties in the afternoon – the team opting to have both teammates in the VF-26 each day this week splitting the sessions. Bearman’s program was temporarily curtailed later in the day by an electrical issue, but the Brit successfully returned to the track in the final hour under the lights and subsequently set a fastest lap of 1:35.778 – Bearman also sampling C2 and C3 compounds exclusively.

Thursday’s penultimate day of track action will see Bearman driving in the morning with Ocon back in the VF-26 for the afternoon session.

Ayao Komatsu – Team Principal:

“We had both Esteban and Ollie in the car – it was certainly an interesting test day. We’ve reacted well to a lot of the things we’ve learned from the car today, in fact we’ve learned quite a lot. We’ve got a pretty clear direction in terms of what we need to do to improve the car, so that’s good. Other positives are on the PU side, energy management and so on – things like deployment and drivability, it’s been a step up compared to last week’s test. I think that’s just part of the on-going development, it’s all part of the learning that comes from these sessions. In general, we learned a lot about our car as a whole today. Even though we spent some downtime in the garage in the afternoon, the guys identified issues, worked on problem-solving, and then focused on the direction we have to take. It’s been very good, very useful.”

Esteban Ocon:

"It was another productive morning where we did quite a lot of laps, which was good – we learned more. The four-day break was very productive for us as we’ve improved quite a lot, and we’ve brought some new parts for the car. We're trying to understand those now, but the car felt positive. The rest of the test is going to be about trying to get the latest details and to get the balance how we’d like it to be."
 

Ollie Bearman:

“This afternoon was a bit more interrupted as we had a small issue on the car. We wanted to make sure that it was solved before heading back out, so we lost a bit of time. Going through the items, of course we missed a bit of running, but it means we’ll have more tires for the rest of the test. We learned something incredibly important today, so that’s the key takeaway. I’m looking forward to building on that tomorrow when we run.”