Charles Leclerc dominates as Aston Martin disaster worsens in F1 testing

Charles Leclerc set the pace on a strong last morning of F1 pre-season testing for Ferrari, whilst Aston Martin almost failed to appear on track at all.

Clocking in a lap time of 1:33.689, the Monegasque driver also completed the second-most laps of the Bahrain International Circuit, with 80 across the four hours of running.

He will be back out in the SF-26 for the final afternoon of running before the paddock moves on to Melbourne for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Lance Stroll eventually appeared on track with 18 minutes of the morning session to go, having been consigned to his garage as Honda investigated the power unit issues that have plagued Aston Martin's entire pre-season. The Canadian did not set a representative lap time.

The AMR26 is down on power and unreliable, and there are also question marks surrounding the early aerodynamic philosophy of the car.

Kimi Antonelli continued where he left off on the second day of the second Bahrain test.

Having set the quickest lap seen in Sakhir across both events — a 1:32.803 — the young Italian was second fastest behind Leclerc in the early stages of the morning session.

However, his Mercedes came to a stop midway through his 50th lap of the day, ending his and the W17's running, bringing out the red flag.

The team later confirmed it was a loss of pneumatic pressure and that a power unit change would be required. George Russell will take over for the afternoon/evening session once that switch has been completed.

Oscar Piastri ended the morning third after another solid morning for the McLaren MCL40, ahead of Esteban Ocon, who completed the most laps with 82.

Isack Hadjar was fifth for Red Bull, getting an additional 59 laps under his belt after his full day of running on Wednesday was heavily disrupted.

Despite a late start to the day, Sergio Perez eventually completed 61 laps in the Cadillac, but was almost five seconds slower than the next quickest car, the Audi of Nico Hulkenberg.

Check out the full results from the session [HERE].