Grosjean leads rain-interrupted morning as Schumacher debuts

Romain Grosjean tops the times in a rain-hit opening morning of the Bahrain Formula 1 test as Mick Schumacher makes his test debut for Ferrari.

All eyes were on the Ferrari garage as Schumacher took part in his maiden F1 test with the Scuderia squad, while Fernando Alonso returns to action after retiring from the sport last year as he takes part in the McLaren Pirelli tyre test.

Schumacher completed 33 laps with a best lap of 1m 32.552s to slot into eighth place this morning before rain curtailed any top times to see Grosjean lead the opening four hours with a best lap of 1m 30.982s – over three seconds slower than the weekend’s pole position lap record set by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Alexander Albon, who claimed maiden F1 points on Sunday, placed his Toro Rosso second on the times just one-tenth off Grosjean’s best lap, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen slotting into third place as he hopes to fix the team’s setup problems which plagued its race weekend.

Carlos Sainz claimed fourth place on the times in between the two rain showers for McLaren to push Antonio Giovinazzi into fifth place for Alfa Romeo.

Lewis Hamilton, the early pace-setter, has been shuffled back to sixth place for Mercedes having notched up a half-century of laps to top the lap count.

With Lance Stroll slotting into seventh in the Racing Point, ahead of Schumacher and Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, Alonso is 10^th having stuck to the tyre testing programme in the McLaren.

Daniil Kvyat is also taking part in the Pirelli tyre test for Toro Rosso, while George Russell rounds out the times in the Williams.

Testing action concludes today at 1800 local time with one final day of track action in Bahrain tomorrow.