Franco Colapinto had his best preseason day in his last practice in Bahrain

Franco Colapinto finished his preseason in the best possible way. The Argentine driver had an outstanding day in his last session with the A526 at the Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain, completing 120 laps, significantly improving his times and finishing sixth on the day's overall timesheet.

Unlike on Wednesday, when he only took part in the afternoon session, Colapinto was on track during both sessions. In the morning he worked on the technical programs planned by Alpine and, in the afternoon, he began to test setups closer to those that the team will use in the Australian Grand Prix.

The most important moment came near the end of the day. With new soft tires and with less than twenty minutes remaining, the driver from Pilar carried out a qualifying simulation and set 1:33.818, almost one and a half seconds faster than his best time from the previous day (1:35.254). The 1.436-second improvement left him sixth, 1.015 off the top.

The best time went to Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who, with Mercedes, clocked 1:32.803. Between the Italian and Colapinto were Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris.

The day showed a clear evolution in the Argentine's performance, with a good pace in long runs and consistent progress between the morning and the afternoon. This Friday, on the last day of preseason testing, Colapinto will remain in the garage while Pierre Gasly will take the wheel to complete the final eight hours of testing.

With the start of the championship scheduled for March 8 in Melbourne, Colapinto finished the preseason leaving encouraging signs and consolidating his growth within the team in a key week of fine-tuning before the official debut.

The standings from the second day of the second practice session in Bahrain

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