The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team completed 81 laps between Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel on the second day of 2021 pre-season testing in Bahrain.
While the day began with a technical setback, the afternoon running in the AMR21 ensured the team got back on track with its pre-season programme.
For the final day of running on Sunday, Lance will start in the AMR21 before handing over to Sebastian for the last four hours of pre-season testing.
Lance
Lance racked up the majority of the team’s running on Saturday afternoon, completing 71 laps across the four-hour session.
The Canadian spent the afternoon session completing longer stints on the Hard tyres to help increase the team’s understanding of the AMR21 and to simulate race-like conditions.
The afternoon session again proved quicker than the morning’s running as the track continued to develop and the wind conditions proved slightly calmer than Friday.
Lance was therefore able to progressively improve his lap times throughout his run programme on the Hard tyres.
He was then able to significantly improve his lap times in the final hour of running by switching to the Medium tyres, before a late run on the Softs yielded a best time of 1:30.460, placing Lance third.
“Overall a very positive afternoon after a difficult morning for Sebastian where some technical issues limited our running.
“Track conditions were not so easy – it was still quite windy, but even in those conditions, it felt great to be back driving and getting lots of laps under my belt.
“The afternoon programme went to plan: we completed the main jobs and ticked off the test items. There’s still lots to catch up on tomorrow, but I’m feeling pretty pleased with a solid afternoon.”
Sebastian
Sebastian started the day in the AMR21 but suffered a gearbox-related issue that restricted his running.
He was able to begin the day with several short runs on the Prototype tyre before he returned to the garage.
The team then did an incredible job to return Sebastian to the track inside the final 15 minutes of the session.
He began a run on the Medium tyre and set a personal best first sector before a red flag ended his attempt to improve his previous best of 1:38.849.
Sebastian would return to the track again after the red flag and take his lap total to 10.
"It was not such a busy day for me. We experienced a gearbox issue quite early on and that kept the car in the garage. The guys did a great job to quickly fit a new gearbox and we got back out just before the end of the morning session.
"Doing so few laps today wasn't ideal because there is just one more day of testing before we come back here for the race and I am still learning about this new car.
"Fortunately things went a bit better this afternoon for Lance giving us some important information. Hopefully we can have a more straightforward day tomorrow.”
