Williams driver Nicholas Latifi turns firefighter as pink Alpine leads the way

Nicholas Latifi, FW44, Fire — Photo: © LAT Images

Pre-season Testing

Williams driver Latifi turns firefighter as pink Alpine leads the way

Max Verstappen was third quickest for Red Bull

Ian Parkes

Friday 11 March 2022 12:01 Updated: 12:44

Nicholas Latifi was forced to turn firefighter on a troubled second morning session of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Approaching the two-hour mark at the Bahrain International Circuit, the brakes on Latifi's FW44 caught fire, sending the Canadian into a spin.

As Latifi hurried out of the car, the fire soon caught hold, leading to a tyre exploding as a marshal began to douse the flames with an extinguisher.

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Latifi soon grabbed hold of another extinguisher and joined the marshal in putting out the flames before the car returned to the garage on the back of a flat-bed truck.

Via a message on social media, the team confirmed the despite the 'visibly dramatic' scenes, the fire was "quite minor", but with repairs still required in a bid to get Latifi out for the afternoon.

Latifi ultimately finished bottom of the timesheet, over five seconds back on Alpine's Esteban Ocon who was running in a pink-liveried car courtesy of primary sponsor BWT.

Ocon finished the session with a leading time of one minute 34.276secs, albeit over three-tenths of a second down on the leading time from Thursday set by Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri, and on the C4 compound.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who was quickest on the first morning, had to settle for the second best time ahead of the lunchtime break, just 0.090s adrift on the C3 tyres.

Reigning champion Max Verstappen was third on the timesheet, 1.6s back on the C4 compound as Red Bull and the rest of the teams appeared to again focus on reliability and development rather than outright pace.

Verstappen was followed by Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris in his McLaren, the latter only completing 29 laps.

Behind AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas in his Alfa Romeo and the Haas of Mick Schumacher was Mercedes' George Russell, only ninth quickest.

Russell completed a morning high 67 laps but with his best a relatively pedestrian of 1:38.585s as Mercedes focused on a race simulation.

The session ended under a red flag, with Bottas stopping on track following a further red flag minutes later as the FIA did a systems check.