The sun went down on the Bahrain International Circuit and Kevin Magnussen, alone on the asphalt of Sakhir, took the opportunity to keep the best lap time of the day after all his rivals finished an hour earlier.
Just like what happened to Lewis Hamilton at last year’s spectacular Hungarian Grand Prix, which saw only on grill after a red flag that absolutely everyone except him took advantage of to go through boxesKevin Magnussen has enjoyed a completely empty track for him at the Bahrain International Circuit for a few moments.
And it is that the explanation of this curious event lies in the fact that one of the planes Formula 1 Management responsible for transporting the material from the Haas team to Sakhir, something that had to take place long before the teams got there, experienced mechanical problems on their way out, with the consequent setbacks.
What solution has this impediment? Initially, those commanded by Guenther Steiner were going to have a session of 4 hours solo for them on Sunday, as they ultimately missed the morning of the first day of testing in Bahrain, but several teams, including Alpine and McLaren, refused to approve this last-minute change for which unanimity of the Grill.
Therefore, and after several tense discussions, Haas got them to allow them to recover those 4 hours in stages: one on Friday, another on Saturday morning and the last two on the final afternoon of this preseason, with Kevin Magnussen taking charge of the first relay while Mike Schumacher he would do the same in the Sunday afternoon session.
solo surprise
Thus, Magnussen, the last to join the ranks of the American Formula 1 team, set out to shoot once the others had retired to their respective garages.
Not a single hour was enough for him, after Carlos Sainz finished the joint shooting time at the top, to unseat the Spanish Ferrari driver: a time of 1:33.207 It helped him rise to the first position in the classification on the second day of testing in Bahrain.
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In addition to achieving this milestone, Magnussen used the same Pirelli compound as #55 on his best lap at Sakhir, the C4, making everyone else question the validity of some test lap times that, if it is already generally understood that they are of little use and are minimally significant, give a general outline of what we will see throughout the season or at least at the beginning of it.