Report: 146 more laps added to our testing tally

Team hits 422 total laps as first official pre-season test concludes

Published

13 FEB 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

Atlassian Williams F1 Team added 146 more laps to our tally on the third day of running in Bahrain, seeing us finish joint top of the mileage charts at Formula 1’s first official pre-season test.

Fresh from his run in the FW48 yesterday evening, it was Carlos Sainz who took the wheel once again for the morning session.

Of his 68 laps, his best time was recorded on the harder tyre compound – a 1:37.186 that saw him end the day P13.

Alex Albon returned to the track as the sun began to set on the first official test, with our Thai racer notching a further 78 tours of the Bahrain International Circuit.

His fastest lap of the day came on the softer compound, with a 1:36.793 placing him P11 at the flag.

Of course, testing is not purely about lap times, and the team will no doubt be pleased with the amount of mileage recorded by the FW48 in Bahrain.

With 422 laps, Williams sits joint at the head field for total laps completed across this first of two test outings in Sakhir. That’s 2,283km (1,418 miles) of data that will be pored over back at base in the coming days before testing resumes on Wednesday 18 February.

Alex Albon:

“We knew it was going to be a challenging three days getting up to speed and starting to understand the new car and regulations. The positive is that we got quite a few laps under our belt and the car seems reliable, which is never easy for the first week of testing. “On my side, getting to grips with a new car has been a challenge, but I am enjoying the intricacies of it. There’s a lot of improvement to be done and a lot to learn to bring a better package for the next round of testing, so it will be a busy next week of really digging in to the data.”

Carlos Sainz:

“Overall, it’s been good to test the car properly these past days and be able to do as many laps as we have done. We are still playing catch up on certain things, but doing over 210 laps has given me a much better understanding of what we can expect this year. The cars feel very different and it’s going to be a challenging season, but this is nothing new and I’m up for the challenge. “It’s still early days to discuss performance in detail and compare ourselves to our direct competitors, but it is clear that the gap between teams is not as tight as last year, at least not for now. What is important for me is that we have identified the main areas we want to focus on in the upcoming weeks and I hope that we can improve gradually as we get closer to Melbourne. There is a lot of work ahead of us as a team so there is no time to lose.”

Official 2026 Team Kit

Latest

Bahrain Test Week 1 = Done

How it all went down during week one in Bahrain through our lens

ARTICLE

—

13 FEB 2026