Charouz Racing System’s Niko Kari set the fastest time in the morning session of day three of the FIA Formula 3 Championship test in Bahrain.

The best laps for most drivers were set during the middle of the session, as the grid concentrated on long-run performance in the daytime heat. With no improvements in the final 40 minutes, this left the top 25 cars being covered by 0.967 seconds.

Hitech GP looked the strongest team when its drivers were released for fast laps, with Red Bull juniors Liam Lawson and Dennis Hauger 0.048s and 0.214s behind Kari respectively. Between them was Prema’s Logan Sargeant.

Trident’s Devlin DeFrancesco got the most running in with 39 laps, one more than Hitech’s Max Fewtrell, while Jenzer Motorsport’s Matteo Nannini and Campos Racing’s Sophia Floersch both set less than 20 laps and spent a majority of their time in the garages.

While he was 4.068s off the pace and almost two-and-a-half seconds slower than the next slowest driver, Campos’s Alex Peroni had one of the more consistent long-run performances and clocked 38 laps.

Morning session results