Gasly sensed rivals were ‘hiding’ in claiming P1

Pierre Gasly thought the top teams must have been “hiding” to enable him to finish P1 on the opening day of the official pre-season test.

After three days in Barcelona two weeks ago, the action has become more intense at the venue for 2022’s opening grand prix in Bahrain next week.

Reliability remains more important than outright pace at this stage, of course, but Gasly was able to tick both boxes in the AlphaTauri on Thursday.

He completed 103 laps having had the AT03 to himself while team-mate Yuki Tsunoda prepared to take over on Friday.

Towards the end of the second four-hour session, Gasly was the only driver up there with the times set by Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

A driver who excelled over a single lap last year, the Frenchman went top of the timesheet by more than half a second with a 1:34.010 and then knocked off another tenth, with Sainz only able to get within 0.457sec before a red flag ended the session a few minutes early.

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But Gasly sensed only his team were really interested in pumping in some qualifying-style laps and that others capable of matching his pace had been piling up the sandbags.

a solid day behind the wheel for @PierreGASLY as he racks up 103 laps and ends the day a nice P1

— Scuderia