FP2 at Bahrain is always funny to me, because it feels like it tells you everything and nothing about the season at the same time. It's representative of race conditions, sure, but the teams are all doing different plans and we don't have much of a frame of reference from testing. Qualy will probably give us a better picture but here are my big observations:
1. Mercedes is fast. I did not expect them to top the charts at all after last week, but they genuinely look like they'll be scrapping with Red Bull all weekend. And given their notoriously great reliability, they'll surely be the ones to capitalize if the first race of the season has attrition, as it often does...
This is pretty unlikely but how would you guys feel if you were Lewis winning the title this year? Kinda silly for the Ferrari move?
2. Aston is fast. Probably not "scrapping for a podium" fast, but Fernando looks really good from what we've seen, and Stroll is actually hanging out in the top half with decent consistency. Will the new car suit him better?
3. McLaren is weird. They seem to have a fast car, but Piastri is the only one harnessing that speed on the evening session. They were 2nd and 3rd in FP1 but dropped off after the track cooled for nighttime? Very interesting stuff, or Lando's struggle could've just been a fluke. We've seen qualy heroics from him before.
4. Williams, Haas and RB all look like fairly solid midfielders. I'm sure Haas will have its usual burst of early-season points before falling off, they almost always repeat that cycle even when there are fewer regulation changes to take advantage of. The other two look really solid though, and Sargeant genuinely seems to be on the pace of Albon to a decent extent. As the world's only Logan Sargeant believer I will take this as a preliminary W
5. What happened to Alpine lmao, they are clowning to an extent not seen since the Jolyon Palmer days. Something must've really gone wrong with offseason development for them to be this slow. I expect that kind of pace from Sauber though, they deserve it for creating that horrid new livery/sponsorship deal