2024 F1 Bahrain pre-season testing: Day 2 as it happened

Sargeant is the first driver to have bolted on a set of soft tyres so far in testing. 

The Williams racer has managed a personal best time but remains third on the leaderboard, some 0.828s off Leclerc's best. 

Sargeant: 24

Zhou: 23

Leclerc: 22

Hulkenberg: 21

Tsunoda: 19

Gasly: 17 

Alonso: 14 

Hamilton: 13

Piastri and Perez: 11 

Alonso finally gets a lap time on the board for Aston Martin. The two-time world champion clocks a 1m34.027s, which puts him fifth in the current timesheets. 

• 2024 F1 Bahrain pre-season testing results: Day 2 lap times

It's a new benchmark time from Leclerc as he goes purple in sector one and two. Despite losing some time in the final sector, the Monegasque still manages a 1m31.750s to pull 0.696s clear of Piastri's McLaren. 

Here is Hamilton driving the W15 in anger for the first time. 

The seven-time world champion is currently fifth in the timesheets, over five seconds off the early pace set by Leclerc. 

Leclerc has taken his Ferrari to the top of the timesheets with a lap that has put him 1.7s clear of Sargeant's previous best. 

Meanwhile, Gasly, driving his first laps of the day for Alpine, goes third. 

Ted Kravitz reports that Perez has a brake problem that is being worked on in the Red Bull garage as TV footage shows several mechanics attending to the front of the Mexican's RB20. 

Perez's brakes caught fire momentarily when he returned to the pits but was quickly put out. 

Sargeant posts a 1m33.561s to go fastest in his Williams on the C3 tyre. 

That puts the Williams driver 3.484 seconds clear of Leclerc's Ferrari. 

You may have noticed that an extra 10 minutes of running has been scheduled in for today, with the starting time clock set at four hours and 10 minutes. 

This is set aside for a Safety Car test. The new and upgraded Aston Martin Vantage broke cover for the first time on Wednesday in the Bahrain pitlane. 

No hanging around this morning with several drivers heading out early and getting up to speed. 

We have the first lap times on the board, with Leclerc leading the way from Hamilton, Perez and Hulkenberg. 

After sitting out on the opening day, Lewis Hamilton will get his first proper chance to drive Mercedes' revamped W15 challenger today. The seven-time world champion will complete a full day of running

Sergio Perez, who was the only other driver not in action on day one, is driving the Red Bull this morning.

The full driver line-up for day two in Bahrain can be found here.

In case you missed anything yesterday, Red Bull made an unsurprisingly fast start to F1 2024.

Max Verstappen set an ominous pace in his new RB20 and logged the most amount of laps on his way to finishing a second clear of McLaren's Lando Norris.

McLaren and Aston Martin also looked good, while the newly-rebranded RB had an eye-catching first day. It was a quiet start for Mercedes in terms of laptime as the Silver Arrows focused on data-gathering and long runs. 

Williams had the most difficult day. First Alex Albon stopped on track with a fuel pump issue, before teammate Logan Sargeant suffered a big spin in the afternoon. The American was later sidelined with a suspected driveshaft gremlin. 

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the second day of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain. 

The action gets underway at 7am UK time, so plenty of time to make yourself a coffee and settle down before Thursday's running kicks off.