12/03/2022
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen sends a clear message to Mercedes and the rest as he posts the fastest time of pre-season testing.
Note: As was the case yesterday, Haas was given additional running time to make up for missing out on Thursday. It was during these two hours of running that Mick Schumacher posted the second best time of the day, the second best time of the entire test.
While this morning's session saw teammate, Sergio Perez top the timesheets as Red Bull revealed its much anticipated update, the world champion left it late into the afternoon before ensuring that everyone got the message.
Missing the first hour of running, and with the screens firmly in place, there was speculation that Red Bull might have another raft of updates for the final session, but if changes had been made over the lunchbreak they were barely discernible.
Having gone third quickest on the C2s, Verstappen returned to the pits where his crew shielded the car from prying eyes - and cameras - before heading out again, his front wing smothered in flo-vis.
As he focussed on a long run, like a number of others, the world champion was frustrated when Bottas stopped on track, bringing out the red flag for the second time this afternoon. When the session resumed shortly after, the Red Bull driver headed out and went purple in all three sectors, crossing the line at 31.973.
With just 8 minutes remaining, the Dutchman raised the bar even higher, stopping the clock at 31.720, and as the cameras cut to his garage his crew cheered and Helmut Marko grinned, just as he had done this morning when Perez went quickest.
Meanwhile, with Lewis Hamilton insisting that Mercedes is the underdog heading into the season opener, Russell was clearly struggling with the W13, pretty much as he and his illustrious teammate have been for the last few days.
Other than porpoising, the youngster had to deal with a car that takes understeer to a whole new level.
Alex Albon, whose Williams at one stage sported bright red flo-vis, went 8th only to be demoted when Vettel went third.
As was the case this morning, we had numerous examples of how the new rules might affect overtaking, Russell and Tsunoda at one stage repeating the battle we'd witnessed earlier involving their teammates.
While Mick Schumacher had caused the first red flag of the afternoon having spun off at Turn 1 on cold tyres, Bottas' red flag moment came shortly after he had improved to fourth. At that point Norris, Leclerc, Verstappen, Vettel, Russell and Alonso had all been on long runs.
With Latifi having lost track-time yesterday following his brake fire, with an hour remaining Williams opted to put the youngster back in the FW44, an odd decision when you consider that Albon had only managed 18 laps.
Indeed, Latifi had the highest lap count (124), ahead of Alonso (122), Gasly (91) and Norris (90), the AlphaTauri driver having only driven this morning.
Alfa Romeo completed the most laps (150), ahead of Mercedes (149) and AlphaTauri (148), while McLaren completed the least (90).
"We have failed to tick a lot of boxes," McLaren boss, Andreas Seidl told Sky Sports. "We've made steps but due to the time constraints here we've only done minimal changes.
"Thanks to the support from home we were able to do some longer runs this morning," he added. "What we have seen from the car, on the runs we could do, we have a healthy platform but we have failed to tick a lot of boxes in these three days due to the limitations."
Whatever the truth in terms of Mercedes pace, Red Bull appears to have the edge, while Ferrari also continues to look very, very good. McLaren is hard to call, while Alpine and AlphaTauri look set to continue where they left off last season.
"We've been focusing on ourselves and it is a positive six days," Mattia Binotto told Sky Sports. "We've run consistently and gathered lots of data.
"Performance is difficult to judge, I think both Red Bull and Mercedes are the ones that won last season, they have been strong teams in the past and there are no reason why they are not the favourites."
Fact is, no matter what conclusion we think we can draw from the last three days, in terms of outright pace we won't know until next Saturday, while the rules overhaul gets its first real test the following day.
We can't wait.
Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen completed a total of 96 laps on another solid day of running. The tally took the drivers' Sakhir test total to 320 laps, leaving the team well prepared for next weekend's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
"The main focus today was testing the tyres we are going to use next week," said Verstappen. "The car felt alright and we completed the programme we set out to do, so that's always positive. No one gives full beans or goes to qualifying spec at testing, so we can't read too much into the timing screens. The new parts we tested today worked well which is what we always hope for."
"This morning was good," added Perez. "We have definitely learned a lot throughout this testing period and I think there is still so much to learn. There are lots of areas for improvement to arrive at the best performance package possible. Generally, we had a positive day and now I'm just looking forward to the race next weekend."
Reflecting on the day's running and the final test as a whole, Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin said "The lap times are irrelevant. Today was more about putting together the lessons we have learned over the past few days. It was about going through the process of running different compounds, so that the drivers are happy and that we have a platform to work from for next week.
"There were some slight differences in the tyre allocation between Max and Checo, but generally the idea was the same, to establish a good baseline with which we can start the race weekend and I think we achieved that."
The last day of the test saw Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc work on a programme which was the mirror image of yesterday's. Overall, the Ferrari drivers did 119 laps, equivalent to 644 kilometres, thus bringing the total over the three days to 349 laps (1.889 km). It means that prior to this coming Friday, when the first free practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix gets underway, the F1-75 will have completed a total of 788 laps (3.941 km) between the Barcelona and Sakhir tests, more than any of its competitors.
Sainz was out on track shortly after 10:00 and ran for the majority of the session on the C3 compound, continuing to work on car set-up. Right at the start though, the Spaniard did some laps on the harder C2 tyre and the C5. It was with this that he set his best time of 1:34.905. He did 68 laps in all, or 368 km, making his total over the three days 180 laps (974 km).
Once again, during the lunchbreak prior to the afternoon session, the mechanics adapted the F1-75 to suit Leclerc who first tackled some qualifying runs before switching to race simulations. With less fuel on board, the Monegasque began with the C2 tyres, before also using the C3, C4 and C5s. His best time was 1:32.415, set on the C4 compound.
In the final half hour, after some time was lost as a stranded car was brought back to the pits, Leclerc finally did a long run with a high fuel load. He ran a total of 51 laps (276 km) bringing his three-day total to 169 laps (914 km).
"We cannot draw any definite conclusions, because it will take a few races before we can get a picture of the pecking order among the teams," said Mattia Binotto. "However, what we can say now is that these past few days have been positive for us.
"We were well prepared for these test sessions, as can be seen from the fact we were able to run consistently, without any significant issues, which allowed us to complete more laps than any other team. Our main aim was to gather as much data as possible to understand this completely new car, correlating it with what we had from our tools back in the factory, primarily the simulator.
"It's very hard to say where we are in performance terms and there's no reason why the frontrunners from last season should not once again be the favourites. We will try to be ahead of the chasing pack, which I hope to be very evenly matched.
"Our car is a good basis on which to build and to maximise its potential given that, with such a long season, car development will play a vital role. Charles and Carlos came into these tests in great shape and they have made a major contribution to us getting the most out of these days. Finally, it's great to see so many different interpretations of the rules among all the teams. We can expect a very interesting season."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.
Alpine concluded with Fernando Alonso logging 122 laps to help record crucial data heading into the first race of the season. He ran the A522 for the entire day and recorded his best lap time, a 1:32.698, on Pirelli's C4 tyre to finish third overall. The Spaniard ran trouble free for most of the morning, ticking off his run plan under the heat of the Bahrain sun.
He resumed duties in the afternoon, and after trialling a mix of tyre compounds and different set-up options, ended the day with the second highest mileage for an individual driver.
In total, Alpine has logged 299 laps and 1618km during the three-day test, as preparations now shift towards the opening Grand Prix in just under a week's time.
"It was a good day of testing for us," said the Spaniard, "building on Esteban's strong work yesterday. We've learnt a lot with the car and completed many laps, so I'm pretty happy. We are all still learning about the new cars and set-ups. We've tried several things with some clear results, and that's what you want from testing. It was very productive.
"We don't know what the others are doing, what programme they are following and how much fuel they have, and we need to wait until next Saturday to know. We'll focus on ourselves and our plan is to arrive into next week with 100% effort."
"Today marked the conclusion of pre-season testing and we were able to complete a significant amount of work in preparation for next week's opening Grand Prix," said Otmar Szafnauer. "The last two days have been equally good for Esteban and Fernando with a century of laps for both of them, which has allowed us to finalise our preparations well. It's also meant we've been able to compensate for the loss of track time on the final day in Barcelona.
"We focused a little more on refining set-up and improving many of the finer details. Lots of laps means lots of learning and we've progressed the car significantly this week. We look forward to making further improvements in the coming days to continue our preparation in the best possible manner. Next week, we race for real and that's an exciting time for everyone involved at BWT Alpine F1 Team and for the fans who have waited over the winter for the 2022 season to commence."
The final day saw Mercedes complete its most laps so far in Bahrain with Lewis Hamilton running a race simulation in the morning and George Russell focusing on a single lap programme in the afternoon.
The team experimented with a range of set up configurations to better understand the bouncing issues affecting this generation of cars and harvest data which will be worked on over the coming days as the team tries to unlock the true performance of the W13.
"We have some hurdles to overcome," said Lewis Hamilton, "and obviously next week we'll get a much better showing of our pace. I'm sure everyone can figure out that we are not the quickest at the moment. There is potential within our car to get us there but we've just got to learn to be able to extract it and fix some of the problems, which is what we're working flat-out on.
"I think everyone struggled out on this bumpy track and we come out of testing knowing that we still have a lot of work to do. There's a confidence within the team that we can always work through whatever problem we're facing and that's what we'll do. I have all the faith in the men and women back at the factories to get on top of our issues. One thing is for certain, we'll be bringing our fighting spirit to the first race next weekend!"
It's been a productive few days and very intriguing at the same time," added George Russell, "with so much to learn about these 2022 cars and tyres. We got through our programme with few reliability issues so great from that perspective. We were trying to get every last bit of performance out of the car and push the limits and when you're doing that, you're bouncing around a lot! It's not the most comfortable but I don't really care about comfort as long as the performance is there. At the moment, we seem a step behind our rivals and we have a lot of work to do between now and next week to better understand the car.
"There's a lot of potential in the W13 and I believe our guys are going to get to the bottom of it, we just need to find a way to unlock our performance. The bouncing is affecting our ability to put the car in the right window and the team are working incredibly hard to find solutions for this. This is a long game and I do believe our performance is there, we've just got to find it."
"We've had a busy day here," said Andrew Shovlin, "but that's always the case on the last day of testing. The programme was similar to yesterday but with Lewis doing the race work in the morning and George doing lower fuel and softer tyres in the afternoon. Both sessions have been quite instructive, we've made a bit of progress with the bouncing which in turn has made the car less of a handful on the limit and it also feels like we've made a step in the right direction with setup today.
"There's still a lot of pace to come if we can make further gains on the bouncing and get the car more settled. We've got a lot of good data so hopefully we can gain a bit more understanding of the issues in the next few days.
"From a reliability point of view, the chassis and power unit have run without issue which is encouraging to see and testament to a lot of good work in Brackley and Brixworth. Judging the car from a performance point of view is less easy, we struggled to get the first laps out of the harder tyres but on softer rubber it's coming more easily and we look to be in better shape. It feels like we need to find a bit of pace if we want to be fighting for the win at the first race but we're learning and developing at a good rate so we'll just focus on those aspects and see where we stand in seven days' time."
Alfa Romeo concluded its preparations with a successful day of running, despite a late technical issue that cut the session 40 minutes short of the full eight hours.
The team completed 150 laps, its highest tally for a single day in pre-season, to finish its preparations for next week's championship opener.
"It feels good to finish with a strong day," said Zhou, "I feel we made another step forward.
"It's nice to see constant progress from the team every day and to be able to get some proper short and long runs on a day when it all came together. I had my busiest day in the car and I was also able to go through the procedures that we'll use during next week's race weekend: there's a lot for me to take in tonight but I can be satisfied with the work we have done in pre-season.
"The team did a great job making me feel at ease and giving me the tools to prepare properly. I feel I am fully ready for the start of the season."
"A very positive day up until the issue that stopped us at the end of the day," added Bottas. "We definitely learnt a lot more here in Bahrain than in Barcelona: there are still a few little issues to be solved but I can really say that the car's potential is there and, by the end of the day, I was really starting to enjoy it.
"We need to make sure we address all issues and make sure they don't happen again, but I am confident we will take the next few days to do so. Looking at our performance, we learnt a lot about our car and we will keep learning next week. I am ready, we as a team are ready and I can't wait to race."
"We've had a pretty smooth test from our side," said Pierre Gasly, who completed 91 laps in the morning session, "we completed all the program that we had planned for the three days here. We had a lot of question marks coming here and we've already managed to get some answers to these. I think we still need to sit down for a few days and review all the data we've collected, to try and put the puzzle together, so we can get the best possible car for next weekend.
"Obviously, it's a new car so there are lots of things to learn, I would say there are still areas that we need to improve for the season but that's part of the game when you have such a big change in F1. We have a rough idea of where we might be in the midfield, but we still don't know where we'll be until next week. It was great having the battle out there with Lewis today, we overtook each other a few times. Following definitely felt like an improvement to the previous car so that's a big positive for the upcoming season, racing should be quite fun this year."
"We've made good progress as a team this week," added Tsunoda, "I'm happy with how this test has gone and we've gathered a lot of important data. However, I'm not happy with how my lap went today on the C5 tyre, I think there was lots more potential there but unfortunately, I just couldn't put it together. There are still lots of things to improve myself, and the car, but I think overall it's been a good few days of testing.
"I haven't driven too much around other cars, but from what I've felt so far I think the dirty air is reduced a lot compared to last year, so it's already easier to follow and I've enjoyed it. I've got a good level of confidence heading into the first race next week. It's a bit different to last year, as I've got more experience, and have focussed more on developing the car with the team. We don't know exactly what position we're in at the moment, but we've got a couple of days to work before Bahrain. We've got a good team and we'll keep focussed ahead of the first race."
"It's been a very productive final day," said Jody Egginton, the Faenza outfit's technical director, "which has allowed a good number of test items to be covered and our understanding of the AT03 has moved a big step forward, with some interesting set up directions being identified. Pierre completed a program of long runs in the morning, where we gathered some important tyre data, and allowed the engineers to get a good read of the compounds.
"Yuki then took over for the afternoon and focussed on a range of mechanical and tyre related set-up items, which again yielded some useful data. Overall, we are satisfied with our testing here in Bahrain. We now have to process and analyse the huge amount of data we have collected to be as prepared as possible for the first race of the season."
"We've had two quite successful tests," added Franz Tost, "first in Barcelona and now this week here in Bahrain. We have completed 371 laps (2,007.852km) across all three days. The most important aspect is that we've collected lots of data, which is crucial for further development steps, as we need to find out the correlation between the race track, CFD and wind tunnel.
"There's still some work to do from the set-up side, but the engineers have now got quite a good understanding of which direction to take. We have a strong package, the car is reliable, we have two very good drivers and the team has made a big step forward, therefore I expect a successful season."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.
"A better final day," said Lando Norris, who has been in action for all three days of the test. "We ended with some more positives with thankfully a lot more running. The team made some good progress with the problems we've been having. There's still a lot of improvements to be made for us to able to compete next week. We have a better understanding of the car, and we'll try to implement all of that next week and improve everything going into the first race of the season.
"So, a tough three days, not what we wanted but good enough. We've learnt a lot and made the most of it, which is the most important thing."
"After a positive start in Barcelona, we've had a very challenging test here," added Andreas Seidl. "Our running has been compromised by an issue on the front axle. Time constraints did not allow us to entirely solve this during the test but we were able to move forward, despite a limitation in the number of laps we could complete. We continued to improve our understanding of the car and extract more performance over the course of the test.
"The objective is to fully solve this issue before next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, giving it our all here at the track and at the MTC to catch-up on what we've lost over the past three days. Thanks to our entire trackside team, the team back home at the factory and our colleagues from Mercedes HPP for their hard work during this test. Thanks also to Lando for completing all three days, with Daniel unavailable, testing positive for covid. We wish him a speedy recovery and are looking forward to having him back next weekend for the first race of the season. Winter testing has now concluded and we're very excited to be going racing again."
"We have learned a lot across the test," said Lance Stroll, "and every session with the car has been useful in progressing it further. Bahrain is a great circuit for testing the limits of the car in low- and high-speed corners, so it is positive that we were able to complete the programme as planned. It was quite windy at times, and that affected the cars on track.
"One of the big things around here is discovering how late you can brake, so those tail- and headwinds have quite an impact, as we discovered. All-in-all, it has been a productive test and there is a lot of data to go over to make sure we're in the best possible position for the start of the season. The learning curve has been much greater this year, and I am enjoying working closely with the team to make improvements."
"We ran through our programme and completed a lot of laps this afternoon," added Sebastian Vettel, "which capped a positive three days of testing. Lap times are largely irrelevant, so our focus has been on increasing our understanding of the AMR22. I am happy with the progress we have made, and we know it is going to be a long season of constantly trying to find further improvements.
"These cars are very different," he continued, "you definitely notice the increased weight and it makes the cars a bit 'lazier' to drive. Everyone is coming across similar challenges and that's part of the game. I think reading into lap-times is even more difficult this year but, behind the usual leading teams, it is a tight pack, so I expect fierce competition. Nobody really knows where they stand yet, and this coming week will be important in making sure we hit the ground running in Bahrain."
"It has been a positive test for us," said team principal, Mike Krack, "with only a few minor disruptions, which is to be expected in testing. We were able to achieve significant mileage, as well as complete some representative running in dusk conditions, which will prove beneficial for next weekend's Grand Prix.
"The Bahrain circuit gives the car a good workout because the temperatures are high and the degradation of the track stresses the tyres, too. We were also able to work through the programme as planned, including the trial of new parts and the evaluation of balance and set-up, which is exactly why we go testing.
"It has also been great to be trackside with the team for the first time to understand how everything operates. I am looking forward to building that relationship through the season ahead. With such a big regulation change, it is going to be a very exciting challenge to keep improving the AMR22, and it is one that we are all relishing."
"It was obviously not a fully ideal test," admited Nicholas Latifi, who completed the most laps today, "specifically with the issue we had on day two, but I think the team did a great job of coming together to make the most of day three. There was a lot of good teamwork from both the day and night crew to get the car repaired and all the engineers pulled together to put us in the best position to maximise day three.
"We did a lot of good work, learned a lot and did a lot of laps. That was good for me to try to make up the lost mileage from yesterday and now there's a lot of data to go over to see how we can be in the best shape possible for the first race next week."
"We got some good mileage in over the course of the test and I feel like we've ticked all our boxes, despite losing some time on Friday," added Alex Albon. "In terms of the car's performance, I think there's some more to come from us and I'm excited to keep pushing next weekend and throughout the course of the season to get the most out of the FW44. Overall, it's been a positive and incredibly valuable test and the team have done a great job, especially in some challenging circumstances."
"Conditions throughout the test were warm and breezy," said Dave Robson, the Grove outfit's Head of Vehicle Performance, "with the wind changing direction late on day two. With the change of wind direction came a drop in temperature, which gave us an opportunity to test the car and the tyres in a useful range of conditions.
"Inevitably, the test was extremely busy and after the damage done to the car early on day two, we had to make a few changes to the plan. Although frustrating to lose a lot of track time, we exposed an issue which we have now been able to fix, and we were able to complete 142 trouble free laps on the final day.
"We have a lot to work through over the next few days before we run the cars again here in Bahrain, but we are in a good position as we head into the 2022 race season."
At Haas, the final day kicked off early for Kevin Magnussen, starting the day promptly at 09:00, one hour ahead of the rest of the field as the team continued to recoup its lost time from earlier in the week thanks to an air freight delay.
Magnussen quickly added to the 60 laps he recorded on Friday afternoon where the Dane piloted the VF-22 to the top of the timesheets. It wasn't a problem-free morning for him however, a fuel system issue ending his run-plan earlier than planned as the team worked to rectify the issue before Schumacher's afternoon program commenced. Magnussen recorded a total of 38 laps with a best lap of 1:38.616 set on the harder Pirelli C2 tyre.
Schumacher, who was limited to just 23 laps on Friday, returned on Saturday in the later session to close out the test. The German enjoyed a productive outing steering the VF-22 - one which included an extended two-hour run into the evening to complete the making up of lost time. It was under the floodlights that Schumacher set the second fastest time of the day - a 1:32.241 on the C4 tyre. He bolstered his seat time in testing with a total of 85 laps.
"The car has had a few issues and reliability is the main thing we're working on to be able to run the whole race," said Magnussen, "that's the biggest job for us to do. Performance-wise, we have a rough idea. We've seen some good trends in the car and we'll see next week where we stack up but at least the feeling is pretty good."
"In summary, we obviously haven't been driving as much as we would've liked to," admitted Schumacher. "It's a matter of are we quick or not and that's what is positive - we are. We have a good car, we have something we can work with so everyone can be really happy and proud of themselves that we've achieved that. Now we have to be able to put it down on track when it matters, and that's next week. I'm very much looking forward to what's coming this year."
"A very eventful second test, and all three of our drivers were in the car and did laps," said Guenther Steiner. "We had some issues during the test but then we had some good running, successful outings, so for the whole team it was a tough time, but a good time. We're really looking forward now to the first race. We still have some work to do because we had some reliability issues, mainly small things we just need to fix to be as prepared as we have to be for the first race. I'm really looking forward to it."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.