Max Verstappen tops Bahrain pre-season testing Day 1 AM session- Full results explored

Red Bull's Max Verstappen topped the F1 charts during the morning session of Day 1 of the Bahrain pre-season testing with a marked time of 1:32.548 seconds.

The 2024 F1 cars officially hit the track for the first time as the first day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit was underway. The session ran smoothly mostly with Verstappen in the RB20 coming on top with the fastest lap time with 66 laps.

Following him in second place was Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who was +0.699 seconds slower than the Red Bull after the completion of a total of 63 laps. Fernando Alonso took third place, being further +0.138 seconds slower than Leclerc. He also set 77 laps around the circuit, the most of any other driver in the session.

At the bottom of the ten cars was the Haas of Kevin Magnussen. He was +3.144 seconds slower than Verstappen at the top. Esteban Ocon completed a total of 60 laps and was the ninth fastest, right behind Alex Albon, whose testing ended rather early because of a suspected fuel pump issue.

Here are the timestamps of the drivers at the end of the morning session of the Bahrain pre-season testing.

• Max Verstappen, 1:32.548s - 66 laps
• Charles Leclerc, 1:33.247s - 63 laps
• Fernando Alonso, 1:33.385s - 77 laps
• Oscar Piastri, 1:33.658s - 55 laps
• Yuki Tsunoda, 1:34.136s - 63 laps
• George Russell, 1:34.230s - 46 laps
• Valtteri Bottas, 1:34.431s - 67 laps
• Alex Albon, 1:34.587s - 40 laps
• Esteban Ocon, 1:34.677s - 60 laps
• Kevin Magnussen, 1:35.692s - 65 laps.

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Formula E CEO bets $250k for charity on Max Verstappen losing the world championship in 2024

Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds pledged to donate $250,000 to a 'charity of choice' if Max Verstappen fails to win a fourth consecutive F1 world championship in the 2024 season.

Since 2021, Verstappen has been on a winning spree. After defeating Lewis Hamilton at the end of that season, the Dutchman has managed to establish domination with Red Bull. The team won all but one race in the 2023 season, following which he won a total of 19 races.

Jeff Dodds is rather confident of Verstappen winning another world championship in 2024. However, if the Dutchman fails, Dodds plans to donate $250k, as he told TNT Sports:

"Unless he's injured or something crazy happens, 99% he [Verstappen] gets that trophy. If any one of the other 19 drivers wins it [the F1 championship], we'll give a quarter of a million dollars to the charity of choice of the other driver that wins it.

"It wouldn't be the worst day in the office to give a load of money to charity. But absolutely he is nailed on to win that season," he added.

Max Verstappen sits at a comfortable place after topping the charts at the end of the first day of pre-season testing.