F1 Testing - World champion Max Verstappen sets pace to cement Red Bull as favourites

World champion Max Verstappen set the pace with a blistering lap on the final day of testing. As the afternoon session ran into the final minutes, Verstappen pushed his Red Bull to a time of 1:31.72 to cement his team as favourites going into the new season. Ad/> Red Bull took top spot in each of the day’s two sessions, with Sergio Perez ending the morning top of the pile with a time of 1:33.105, the sixth fastest of the day.

Formula 1Mercedes ‘not the quickest at the moment’ says Lewis Hamilton after pre-season testing4 HOURS AGO Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari briefly top while Red Bull prepared Verstappen to take to the track for his second stint of the day. The Monaco driver set a time just 0.695 seconds behind Verstappen, and strung together lap times in the mid 1:32s on one of his longer runs. It is too early to say with confidence who will be leading the pack but the Ferrari’s consistency is ominous.

Ferrari and Red Bull continually looked some distance out in front of the rest of the pack as temperatures on the track cooled and the desert wind dropped. It was Red Bull’s chance to turn heads when they unveiled a radical rework of their sidepods in the morning session that Verstappen put to good effect. The new sidepods, paired with a drastic reworking of the rear of the floor, seemed to give the Red Bull a huge boost to their aerodynamic performance, and speed.