F1 Bahrain test 2: official driver line-ups confirmed for Thursday and Friday. Formula 1 pre-season testing resumes in Bahrain for the second session.

The green lights are set to come back on in Bahrain for the second session of Formula 1 pre-season testing, and all teams have started to release their official driver line-ups. After the opening session last week allowed drivers to begin understanding this new generation of cars more clearly, on-track action is ready to resume.

From Wednesday 18 to Friday 20 February, once again at the Bahrain International Circuit, the second part of F1 pre-season testing will take place. In the meantime, teams are confirming their official line-ups: here is how the drivers will rotate behind the wheel over the coming days.

Still everything to be written…

What answers have emerged from the first three days? So far, very few. The teams used the sessions available to continue putting mileage on their Power Units and to begin working on setup configurations and race pace simulations, collecting crucial data that will then be carefully analysed back at the factories.

That has been the approach. Yesterday, on the first day of the second test session, all the drivers on track pushed a little harder, completing particularly interesting simulation runs. Mercedes, of course, started very strongly once again, with George Russell demonstrating in the afternoon the full potential of the project. Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull appear very close, but still require deeper analysis to fully understand the competitive order.

Over the next few days, it is highly likely that the teams will bring to the track the package that will be used in Melbourne for the first Grand Prix of the season, an event for which they cannot afford to arrive unprepared.

The official line-ups for the tests

With only one car available per team, the drivers will have to alternate at the wheel of the new single-seaters. Here are the first OFFICIAL line-ups confirmed for Thursday 19 and Friday 20 February in Bahrain.