Red Bull unveiled a new sidepod design on the final day of testing in Bahrain where Sergio Perez set the pace

Sergio Perez topped the lap-time table at the end of the morning session on Day 3 of testing. The Red Bull driver finished the session with a quickest time of 1:33.105, 0.8 seconds quicker than Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou in second. Ad/> The morning session on the final day of testing concluded with a racing start between the four drivers remaining out on track.

Formula 1Red Bull unveil new sculpted sidepod design on final day of testing in Bahrain4 HOURS AGO With the first semi-racing start of the season, the teams were looking to see if the new regulations did afford closer racing. Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri led from the start with the driver’s reluctant to attempt an overtake. /> Red Bull’s updated sidepods were the talk of the paddocks on Day 3 in Bahrain, the final chance for the teams to test new designs and tweak additions to their cars.

Perez took to the track with an hour of the session gone, as the team hurried to make the most of the morning’s testing window. The scrapes and bangs of panel work being fitted could be heard from Red Bull’s garage. Zhou, China’s first F1 driver, had dominated the lap time leaderboard for the early parts of the session, swapping times with the Red Bull of Perez.

Lewis Hamilton, in his new-look Mercedes, could not do better than ninth fastest, 3.112 seconds off top position. His team were looking to test the car’s race-distance performance with longer runs and fewer of the bleeding edge charges that Hamilton is associated with. Both the Mercedes and the Red Bull continued to be difficult to drive as the teams tried to find the ideal set up.