25/02/2023
NEWS STORY
Sergio Perez tops the timesheets in Bahrain as pre-season testing comes to an end, and red flag restart hopefully offers a hint of what's to come.
Like finding the onions under your burger in a Wimpy brunch, or the sax at the end of Walk on the Wild Side, sometimes the best really is saved for last.
And so it was today, when the practice restart provided a few seconds of thrills as the seven drivers on track got in some early practice for next week.
Of which more later.
As expected, the afternoon consisted mainly of long runs, shorts runs, runs of every variation before attention switched to pace in the final hour or so.
Unlike this morning there were no red flag stoppages and as a result, following a busy morning, the 1,399 lap count was up on Thursday (1,276) and Friday (1,317).
Three drivers, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas and Alex Albon were on duty for the whole day, their teammate having been on duty all day yesterday.
"The team are working hard to diagnose and resolve a mechanical issue which brought the C43 to a stop in the morning session," said Alfa Romeo during the lunch break, referring to the (thought to be gearbox related) issue that caused Bottas to stop on track. "Big push to get Valtteri back out this afternoon."
Meanwhile, Ocon, Sainz, Norris, Magnussen and Hamilton got to work, along with Tsunoda whose car appeared to be smothered in flo-vis for much of the afternoon.
"We've managed to work through a lot of laps, tried a lot of set ups," Christian Horner told Sky Sports. "We are focusing on ourselves, and we are in a reasonable place with the car.
"Perez's feedback has been consistent with Max's," he added, "which is important for the development of the car, that the feedback is pretty consistent from both sides of the garage. That's the great things about testing, you get to try all the things you wouldn't try in the race."
Referring to Max he added.
"Max has been in a great place the last few years now. His confidence is very high, he's got that experience. He just gets in and turns it on, and you saw that in the first lap in testing. He's in great shape, physically he's in great shape and ready to start the season.
"The mileage we are doing in testing is big mileage now, so it's a great workout for the car. It becomes a different pressure. It's the first time we've been back in that garage in eight years. Of course now there comes a different pressure of trying to retain those titles, but the mood in the team is sky high."
Finally, asked about the pecking order, he replied: It's very difficult to say. Ferrari look like they are quick. Mercedes' form is very difficult to read. Are they holding something back?
"I think Aston Martin have made a big step. It looks like their concept of car has seen them make a big step. Fernando in particular looks very comfortable."
At which point the Spaniard headed out, immediately going seventh.
Improving to 13th, Hamilton was clearly struggling with a very nervous W14, the rear of the car seemingly having a mind of its own.
Sainz went second to make it a Ferrari 1-2, as Hamilton improved to sixth then fifth.
"Nobody knows what the others are doing, levels of fuel, engine modes..." Fred Vasseur told Sky. "We have to wait until next week. For sure you want to do more as three days is quite short but it is the same for everybody, although if you ask the drivers, they'd want one more week.
"The mood is perfect," he added, "I think we are in good shape today. The championship will be long and difficult but at the end of the day it will be a good challenge. When we are able to put everything together, the pace is there."
Over at Alpine, Ocon appeared to be taking a pounding the Frenchman's car appearing more susceptible to bouncing than any other.
All of which didn't worry former teammate Alonso, who improved to fourth.
As Hamilton improved to third, Norris headed out, the McLaren driver having only completed 13 laps at that point.
Perez improved again and but for a pesky Ferrari might have gone even quicker as attention, now that the circuit was under floodlights, turned to pace.
Perez went quickest, Tsunoda went fifth, while Magnussen, having only just completed his race run, jumped to seventh.
As Perez upped the ante with a 30.305, amidst speculation that Mercedes had run out of soft tyres, Bottas went out on the softest compound but failed to improve.
Hamilton reappeared on mediums but the car still looked very skittish.
As the session came to an end, Red Bull's approach was clear to see, Perez' halo was covered in flo-vis, the team not letting any opposition to acquire data go to waste.
Unlike this morning there were 7 drivers on track for the red flag restart, and unlike this morning, which saw only two drivers head out, it was a rolling start... and they went for it.
Tsunoda led off the line ahead of Norris and Perez who were side-by-side, with Bottas storming down the inside. Into Turn 1, Perez followed Tsunoda, as Bottas went through on the inside of Norris who ran deep and wide, losing out to Hamilton, Alonso and Ocon also.
On-board footage showed Bottas benefitting from a tow from the Red Bull and almost catching Perez on the entry to Turn 1, while at Turn 8, the Finn made a cheeky move on Perez to go second, with Hamilton subsequently passing the Mexican.
A nice end to a busy three days, three days that featured all the usual cliches in terms of what we don't know... fuel loads, are they holding back, etc.
Doubtless the next few days will be spent analysing these three days to death with every minute, every twist and turn put under the microscope, whereas in just seven days we'll know for real.
That said, there are going to be a few happy faces in the paddock tonight, a few looking just a little dubious and others looking downright miserable.
We're pretty sure Christian and Max will be grinning from ear to ear.
Mercedes says it made positive progress with the W14 and logged significant mileage as pre-season testing came to a close, with Russell running in the morning and Hamilton taking over in the afternoon. The drivers combined to complete 148 laps across the day.
Following extensive work trackside and at the factory, initial running focused on evaluating the overnight changes. Russell set about a programme focusing on tyre compound comparisons, using the C5 tyre to set a fastest lap of a 1m31.442s.
A long run programme utilising the C1 and C2 compounds followed before Hamilton got behind the wheel of the W14 for the afternoon. Beginning the post-lunch work with long runs on the C3 tyre, he then mirrored Russell's tyre compound compare from this morning.
The team's fastest lap time of the test was set as night fell; Lewis putting on the C5 compound to set a 1m30.664s.
"A fair bit of work took place overnight to find some refinements to the car specification and recover our direction on the setup," said Andrew Shovlin. "We do seem to have made progress; both drivers felt the car was in a much better place across the range of conditions today and the balance is closer to what they require on single lap and long run.
"It's clear that we still have work to do on car pace but today has given us a much more coherent picture of where we need to focus our efforts. We'll be using the time ahead of next weekend to go through the data we've collected, and aim to extract a bit more lap time."
"We had a much more positive day today," said Russell. "We took a step forward and made progress with the issues we faced yesterday. I believe we have improved the car over the course of testing and got the W14 in a much better window today. There is still plenty of work to do but we're in better shape for next week with more to come."
"It has been an interesting few days," added Hamilton. "There has been a lot of discovery and the whole team has approached it with the same mentality, working hard, not being complacent and staying focused. We're not quite where we want to be but it's a good platform to start from.
"We don't know where we will be next week," he added, "but we will stay positive and continue to push to the maximum."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.
Valtteri Bottas's 131 laps brought Alfa Romeo's tally to 401 for three days, with Valtteri and Zhou Guanyu amassing a total of 2,170 kilometres. The data collected will allow the team to prepare in the best possible way for the opening round of the season next week.
On the final day of action, a technical issue to the C43 cost the team some time in the morning but, thanks to the great job by the garage crew, Valtteri was able to return to track early in the afternoon and complete his programme, with the lap count well into the triple figures by the time the chequered flag fell.
Over the three days, Alfa Romeo were able to extensively test the new tyres, learning about the new compounds that will accompany the team throughout the season; and put to the test the power unit by Ferrari, which will enable the C43 to compete at its highest levels. The work the team completed with its partners will be at the base of what promises to be an exciting 2023 season.
Most importantly, the team in Sakhir was able to complete a productive test thanks to the precious work of the "home team" back in Hinwil: following months of development of the C43 and an intense production period, the crew in Switzerland also provided constant support to those in Bahrain, enabling them to complete the programme successfully.
"Overall, I am pretty satisfied with how these testing days have gone," said Bottas, "the car felt good, and I reckon the feeling in the cockpit improved over the winter.
"We got plenty of laps in today, despite a technical issue which cost us some time. Thanks to the work of our mechanics, I was able to return to the track rather quickly and complete the whole programme we had set for ourselves for this final day: I am grateful for their effort, as well as for that of everyone back at the factory in Hinwil. I am looking forward to getting back on track in a week and finally get that racing feeling again."
"We can be satisfied about these three days," added technical director, Jan Monchaux. "The most important thing when having limited testing is to tick off all the boxes, and we've managed to do that: we collected plenty of data and I feel we've prepared for the season as best as we could. Reliability was reasonably good for this stage in the season, and when we had some minor issues, the good work by our crew enabled us to make up the lost time without affecting our programme. Overall, we have to say thanks to our colleagues back in Hinwil, as well as to our race team, for putting us in the best possible conditions ahead of this testing session.
"Performance wasn't yet our main aim: we didn't focus on what the others were doing but simply looked at ourselves. Like everyone else on the grid, we still have some homework to do ahead of next week, of course: we remain focused on delivering our best work in what is going to be a long season, and we're excited to go back to racing at last."
The last day of the test saw Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz complete a total of 143 laps, which makes the total distance covered by the team this week 417 laps, or 2,257 kilometres. The SF-23 will therefore tackle the first Grand Prix weekend of the season with over seven race distances already in the bag.
Leclerc was out on track shortly after 10am local time and for the majority of his session, he ran the C3 compound while continuing to work on car set-up. He actually started off on the harder C2 tyres, as well as doing a qualifying simulation on the C4 compound, with which he set his best time of 1'31"024. He completed 67 laps (363 km), bringing his three day total to 199 laps (1,077 km).
Over the lunch break, the SF-23 was configured for Sainz who spent the afternoon working first in qualifying trim before switching to race configuration.
The Spaniard alternated between the C2 and C3 tyres, before switching to C4s, with which he set his best time of 1'31"036.
In the final 90 minutes, Sainz completed a race simulation, bringing his total number of laps for the day to 76 (411 km) and for the whole test to 218 (1,180 km).
"We have three very intensive days of testing behind us," said Leclerc. "The first day was all about running big scans and trying to understand how well our data matches what we predicted at the factory. What we learned is that there is quite a good correlation.
"We focused a lot on set-up work this week and made some good steps forward. I also tried out some different driving styles to test what suits me best in this new car.
"We'll be back next week for the opening race of the season and it will be interesting to see where all teams stand in relation to their closest competitors."
"We finished the test without any issues," added Sainz, "and completed the full run plan that we had for these three days. So first of all, thank you very much to the entire team here and in Maranello.
"Today we focused on both short and long runs to finish the assessment of some of the parameters that we wanted to test. Now we will focus on analysing the data, in order to arrive at the first GP of the year as well prepared as possible. I'm looking forward to racing here next week."
"It has been three intense days of work for everyone in the team," said Frederic Vasseur. "We have scanned a number of items on the car and ticked many of the boxes of our programme, without worrying about lap times or what the others have been doing, simply focusing on ourselves.
"The main target was getting as much mileage under our belt as possible and we did that, although it's also true that you always want to do more and have more time. But it's the same for everyone. Whenever we managed to put everything together the performance seemed to be there, but we are clearly still in the process of getting to know the car so it's too early to say anything.
"The mood in the team is perfect and we are in a good shape to start this long season."
"We've had a productive three days, where we gathered a lot of good data for the season," said Yuki Tsunoda who ended the day sixth overall. "Today was my first afternoon session for this test, and I was happy with the quality of my driving during performance runs and my feedback to the team.
"We found some limitations, but looking deeper into it, I am certain the team and I will be able to improve in these areas to make the performance stronger. We'll be working to keep this momentum going into next week and I hope we can achieve good results for the coming races.
"As always, it's a tight midfield, but it's difficult to compare ourselves to the other teams without knowing what programmes they were running. I'll rest up, so that I am able to give 100 per cent for the race next week."
"I'm very pleased with how everything went," added Nyck de Vries. "We completed many laps and were able to tick all the boxes. We learnt a lot about our package throughout the three days of testing, which will help us put everything together for next week.
"The midfield is very tight and competitive, so hopefully we can maximise our potential and get a good result for the first race of the season."
""Being our final day of testing, we had several set-up items to tick off the list before heading into race mode next week," said Jonathan Eddolls, the Faenza outfit's chief race engineer. "Some of these tests yielded results that were not quite as expected, but it was great to scan the envelope of the AT04.
"I think today we made the most progress out of the three days in terms of understanding the car, optimizing the tyres, aero work and set-up, which seems evident in the lap times.
"Clearly, everyone is on different plans, especially in terms of fuel loads, so we are being realistic in our expectations for performance at the start of the season, but we believe we should be able to put up a fight with the midfield group. The car ran very reliably for all three days which enabled us to gather all of the necessary data, so we can now analyse over the coming days to put everything together and come up with the best set-up and plan for the race weekend."
"Today has been a solid day of learning," added Jody Egginton, "providing some really interesting results and data to take away and review further.
"Overall, this test has been very busy and challenging at times, but I'm very pleased to see some good progress being made in understanding our package and the car running very reliably.
"Both Yuki and Nyck have delivered a good level of performance, giving excellent feedback and pushing the engineers. The workload has been very high, but the trackside mechanics, engineers, and factory support from Faenza and Bicester have risen to the task, which resulted in Scuderia AlphaTauri topping the mileage of this year's pre-season test.
"The team has provided excellent levels of support to ensure we have covered the run programme, minimised garage time, and processed the huge amount of data over the three days of testing, so they all deserve a big thank you."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.
Haas rounded out with another productive day, as Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen bolstered the team's lap tally by an additional 172 laps to make a final total of 415 laps.
Hulkenberg enjoyed his highest single-session lap count in the VF-23 with 77 laps in the morning session. The German's final run plan focused on some early baseline running, high-fuel learning and the overall goal of accruing as much mileage as possible - Hulkenberg's personal total on the week boosted to 196 laps. A fastest lap of 1:33.329, set on Pirelli C3 tires, placed him P15 on the timesheet.
Kevin Magnussen wrapped up the on-track action steering the VF-23 from the afternoon into the evening in Bahrain. The Dane clocked 95 laps - the single highest session total for the team this week - bringing his overall lap count to 219.
With a successful race distance sim completed, Magnussen and the crew ended the test with full crew pit-stops through the final 30 minutes of track time. He finished P7 on the day with a best lap of 1:31.381 on the softer C4 compound.
"All in all, it's been good," said the Dane. "I've got mileage in the car and I think I got what I was personally looking for, to get off on a good foot with the car, and find a good connection and harmony.
"I feel comfortable that the car does what I say and not the other way around. We've collected huge amounts of data that the team will go through and analyse over the next few days, and it's all information that's important for a driver as well."
"It's been a busy three days and that's a very positive thing," added Hulkenberg. "Today we got a lot of laps in, and I was in the car from the beginning to the end - I only came out to go to the toilet! We completed a whole race in one run with live pit stops and going out again, so I'm pretty happy.
"You come into testing with a plan and you expect to be having to change that plan because of issues but we didn't really have to. We got through it all, we nearly did 100 laps in one afternoon and that's usually what you'd expect to do in one day."
"It was a very good day today," said Guenther Steiner, "more than 170 laps completed without an issue. A lot of test program, race simulation with one completed and one almost completed, so a very good day. In general, the test went very smoothly with very few issues compared to years before.
"The whole team came here very well prepared - we did our homework - so when we arrived, we were ready to go, and you could see that. It was good progress from last year so now we need to see where we stack-up.
"It's difficult to say still but we are in the midfield, let's see if we're at the top or the end of the midfield but we're now ready for the race next weekend."
"It was a good day for us," said Alonso, who ended the test ninth overall, "with lots of laps and we have learned a lot about the new car. But it is only testing and we do not know what everyone else is doing so there are still many questions to answer. We have missed having Lance here this week, but I have to say Felipe adapted very well and did a good job.
"Overall, the car felt competitive across the three days, but we need to compare to the others next week. There is a lot of potential left for us to unlock and I think we are in a decent place heading into next week. Our goal is to make a step forward from last year and we will take things step by step."
"I have really enjoyed my time behind the wheel of the AMR23," added Drugovich, "and I think we have made good progress across the three days.
"It was great to get back in the car this morning and I am pleased with the set-up changes that have been made since my first day in the car; the team have done a really good job implementing the feedback Fernando and I have given. It has been a valuable experience to compare my own observations with those of a two-time World Champion.
"In general, our comments are similar and I think we have worked well together to help the team maximise our three days of pre-season testing. The car feels like a step forward from last year, but we need to remember that all teams will have developed over the winter and so we will continue working hard to maintain this momentum. We are feeling positive, although we will not have a true indication of our relative pace until qualifying next Saturday."
"Day three is done and dusted," said performance director, Tom McCullough. "We managed to complete our run plan and got a number of laps on the board with both drivers. Felipe did another strong job for us in the morning and Fernando continued in the afternoon.
"The car ran reliably and again we managed to gather a lot of data. We are still getting to understand the car and learning about various operational and procedural matters, but we have made good progress. Now our attention moves to the first race and applying everything we have learned this week to optimise things further.
"Huge credit to the team this week and in the lead up to testing. It has been a massive effort by everyone trackside and at the factory to get us to this point. We are looking forward to getting the new season underway."
"A decent three days," said Norris. "First of all it's good to be back in a car. Second of all a big improvement from our test last year, getting so many laps under our belt, so the team have done a good job, a big thanks goes to them.
"We know there's a few things we still need to improve on, but we're in a reasonable place heading into race week. We've gathered a lot of data, which we'll be analysing thoroughly ahead of next week. We'll be working hard to get as much lap time out of the car and look to get the development of the MCL60 underway."
"It wasn't the smoothest of mornings as we had a few issues with the car," added Piastri. "I didn't get as many laps in as we would have liked. But nonetheless we still got some good running, and I'm still learning all the time, which is good.
"I think we're in reasonable shape for next week, some more laps would be lovely but that's always the case. It's been a good few days of working with the team, getting the season underway, thanks to them for their support.
"I feel like we're in a pretty good spot and I'm looking forward to getting out for my first race next week."
"The final day has been challenging," admitted Andrea Stella, "as we had some downtime during the repair of a minor ongoing issue.
"We are not concerned about the issue for the race," he continued, "but it required some attention today to ensure we could complete as much of our run plan as possible.
"Despite those small setbacks we could still get some good information about the car in representative night-time conditions. We were able to see that we have made some steps in terms of performance across the test, and we have some valuable information ahead of the race next weekend.
"I would like to thank all the team, both trackside and at the factory, for the hard work during the test. Likewise, I would like to thank HPP for their support. We are now ready to go racing and look forward to the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.
At Alpine, Pierre Gasly drove in the morning session completing 57 laps - with Esteban Ocon bringing the test to a close with another 76 laps in the afternoon-evening session.
The team accumulated 133 laps on Saturday to add to its double century of laps completed on the first two days.
With an eye on next weekend's season opening, the team used the C1, C2 and C3 tyres throughout the day opting to forgo the C4 and C5 compounds.
The team will now analyse the data collected over the past three days with the aim to begin the 2023 season on a high.
"We're all feeling ready for the racing to begin next weekend," said Otmar Szafnauer. "It's been a very consistent and conservative test for the team where we've remained committed to our programme to ensure we are as best prepared as we can be for the season ahead. Of course, as is common in pre-season testing, we had some small hindrances at times, but this is the reason for testing to allow us to learn about our package.
"Esteban and Pierre have worked tremendously with the team and we'll continue our hard work between now and Friday to make sure we're in a good position to begin our 2023 season on a positive note."
"It's been good to properly kick off the new season and put the A523 to the test," added Ocon. "There was much to learn during these last three days and we definitely did a good job to cover many different areas. We tried a variety of set-up items and tyre choices, and operationally we managed to have a good feel for what works well. This has given us a strong direction to follow and now we'll have the next few days to look at data and debrief all together to be as ready as possible for the first race weekend of the year."
"It's been a very intense three days," said Gasly, "and I must say, I'm definitely ready and excited for the first Grand Prix next weekend.
"For me, this week was all about continuing my familiarisation with the team and getting up to speed with the A523 on track. Our run plans have been busy with many different test items and set-up changes and while we completed so many different things, not everything is possible within the short timeframe and there's certainly work ahead of us to keep improving our overall package.
"I'm proud of all the teamwork from everybody and I look forward to seeing how we fare next weekend for the race."
"In terms of mileage, we've had a very good three days," said Alex Albon. "We've ticked everything we wanted to tick off and completed our race and qualifying runs.
"Now it's about going through the data and seeing what we've got. We're definitely in a better place in comparison to this time last year, it's just more about how far we can take it."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.