24/02/2024
NEWS STORY
Charles Leclerc posted the fastest time of the day in Bahrain today, Ferrari having posted the two best times of the week.
Sadly, as was the case yesterday, the session had to be red-flagged after a drain cover worked lose, however action resumed just over an hour later with the decision taken to scrap the lunch break and allow drivers to continue up to 19:00 (local time) as originally planned.
Of course, the need to change drivers, and thereby set-up the cars accordingly, meant there was still a lack of track time but for the most part the teams appeared unaffected.
Nonetheless, the improved conditions in the afternoon/evening meant that we had to wait for the main running on softs, however unlike previous years there were no real banzai laps with a number of teams still opting not to show their hand.
Charles Leclerc was quickest, though he was unable to eclipse his teammate's time from yesterday. The Monegasque's best time came on the C5 rubber, while Russell used the C4 to post the second best time of the day.
Zhou, Tsunoda and Albon all made it into the top ten courtesy of the red-banded rubber, though Hamilton's best lap this morning on the C5 was only good enough for 12th.
Ominously, Verstappen was only 0.433s off the pace despite sticking with the mediums (C3), while Piastri and Alonso also looked good on the yellow-banded rubber.
The 19 drivers on duty - Sargeant having driven the car all day yesterday - completed 1,240 laps on a day which saw few obvious reliability issues.
Having suffered issues at the rear of the car yesterday, it was worrying that Norris only completed 20 laps this morning however teammate Piastri more than made up for that in the afternoon.
Red Bull aside, there remains no clear indication of the pecking order, either in terms of the main challengers to the Austrian outfit or the midfield, and a strong afternoon from Hulkenberg offers hope that Haas might not be the lost cause we all feared.
"We have some idea of roughly where things are," Dan Fallows told Sky Sports, "but we are concentrating on making sure we've made the step we think we've made over winter. Minor issues that you tend to get with a brand new car but nothing significant, and anything we have found we have resolved very, very quickly."
"It's still difficult to known where we are," admitted Leclerc. "We've gone through our programme, no major issues. Good thing is no major surprises. Everything we expected we got, so that is good. Helps the guys to develop the car, everything seems to make sense.
"How competitive we are, it's difficult to understand. My feeling is that Red Bull are ahead. We have a stronger base compared to last year. Last year, it was difficult to understand which direction to develop. Very different story this year, know where we need to improve, gives us more hope."
In the final couple of hours, around the time the race takes place in just over a week, the teams used the similarity in conditions to carry out their race simulations.
As was the case yesterday, the FIA carried out a systems check which involved red-flagging the session then simulating an abandoned start followed by a full grid start - even though Verstappen, Gasly and Albon, who completed the most laps today, opted not to play.
Sadly, unlike yesterday the drivers behaved themselves and there were no scraps.
After the three days it is too early to draw any conclusions, especially as there is so much the teams keep to themselves, however one feels we'll be hearing the Dutch national anthem next week - or possible the Mexican.
Behind the Bulls it appears to be Ferrari second best, with Mercedes, Aston Martin and McLaren battling for third, ahead of RB and Alpine then Stake, Williams and Haas.
"Overall it was very good today," said Verstappen. "We focused on the long running to get more of an understanding of the car and it was good to see the performance of the car was very strong. We made the plan to not focus on pure lap time and tried different compounds, so I am happy with the laps that we did today.
"As we head into the race weekend it is all about fine tuning the car and also seeing what the race throws at you when you push the car to the limit. We now need to look into the data a bit more and try to come up with a plan for the week ahead. We've had a really positive test and we have learned a lot from everything we changed, so we are looking forward to next week."
"We have got plenty of mileage over the last few days," added Perez. "The run programme that we put together was very good and meant we really made the most out of the days. Now it is time to look forward to the race next weekend, I have a good feeling in the car, so let's see once we get to race it, but the feeling is very positive."
"Today was about tidying up the loose ends from the previous two days of running and giving both drivers and their crews some freedom on the detail in preparation for next week," said Gianpiero Lambiase. "Whilst it has been a globally positive start to the year, the hard work has only just begun as we now have a much more informed understanding of the platform beneath us and the areas that need addressing to kick-start development.
"We will be looking to make the most of the few days back in Milton Keynes before returning for what will hopefully be an exciting season opener."
At Alpine, Gasly finished the day 15 and teammate Ocon 17th, the pair completing 102 laps in total.
"Overall, it was a productive test for us," said Ocon, "probably one of the strongest during my time at the team. Since I jumped in the car, from Day 1 everything has been faultless and strong from an operational standpoint. The car has been working reliably and we managed to complete our testing programme.
"We improved the car and made progress from the first day to the last day. But we have a lot of work to do and it's going to be interesting now to go through all the data and understand where we can make improvements. Three days of testing is short for a new car, so there's still a lot to learn and extract from our package. Thanks to everyone at the team here, at Enstone and Viry for the long hours over the winter. Now it's time to go racing."
"We did a lot of testing this week," added Gasly, "and now we have an important week coming up where we will go through all the data and continue our understanding of this new car concept. It's vital to learn all about the entire package and understanding how we can optimise it. On my side, it's been quite tricky at times especially as we missed out on some running both yesterday and today.
"The red flag was unfortunate on Day 2, then this afternoon we had the wheel brow coming loose from the car and that meant we missed a couple of laps at the end. Still, it's been a productive test for the team across the last three days and that is most important. I'm definitely excited for the first race."
"It's been a solid three-day test for the team where we've focused on ourselves and committed to a comprehensive and important test programme," said Bruno Famin, the French outfit's team principal. "We have been operationally strong all week and demonstrated great teamwork between both factories and the trackside team, which has been good to see.
"Our reliability has been good and that has enabled us to complete our test plan as expected. Now is the time to work through the data and concentrate on optimising the package we have in our hands ahead of next week's first Grand Prix. We know where we stand.
"We are expecting a challenging start to the year as we continue to learn more and more about our A524 to develop it across the season."
Before the red flag. Sainz had completed 15 laps, the most of any driver. When the track reopened for business, the Spaniard continued with his programme, running mainly the C3 compound, after starting the day on a set of C4s he had used yesterday on a qualifying simulation run. He tried the car with different fuel loads as well as various settings. He completed 71 laps with a best time of 1:31.247. Over the whole test his total figure was 227 laps.
Shortly after 15.00, Leclerc took over for the rest of the day, simulating various phases of a GP weekend, including qualifying and the race itself. Copying his team-mate from the previous day, he started off on the C3 compound, setting a time of 1:31.374.
The Monegasque then went out on C4s in qualifying trim, posting his fastest time of 1:30.322. In the final 100 minutes of track time, Leclerc switched to race configuration completing a total of 78 laps using C3, C1 and C2 compounds. His three day total was 196 laps.
"We've wrapped up our third day of testing, having put in a solid number of laps and completed a lot of different tests, which is positive," said Leclerc. "The car is reacting the way that we wanted it to, but it is still difficult to assess its level of competitiveness right now. The feeling is better than the base we started from last year. Now, it's full focus on the race and I can't wait to be back on track next week."
"Overall, it has been a good day," added Sainz, "despite the red flag that disrupted the running, but I enjoyed every single lap in the car today. We tested a lot of different configurations to collect as much data as possible.
"The car seems to be in a decent place and I'm proud of the work that the team has done to complete such a solid test programme."
"We can be pleased with what we've achieved during this test," said Frederic Vasseur, "both in terms of the mileage covered and the raft of data it has provided. On top of that, both Charles and Carlos were happy with how things went.
"These were three productive days," he continued, "with no technical problems, which is what you want most, especially when it's the only session before the start of the season.
""Our first goal was to see if the SF-24 performed predictably, not being overly sensitive to variations in the external conditions and that it was easy to drive. From what Charles and Carlos have said and looking at the consistency of their performance over a long run, it seems we were successful on this front. It's very important to have the car behave like this as it means the driver can quickly get an understanding of its characteristics and then get the most out of it.
""But this is just a test session and now we simply have to wait exactly one week when we will all be back on track together for the first qualifying session of the season. However, I feel I can say that, looking just at our own performance, we have got off on the right foot. I expect several top teams to all be at a very similar level and I can't wait to see exactly how our package compares to that of our competitors."
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.
Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg strengthened Haas' lap tally by an additional 169 to make a final total of 441 laps.
Magnussen was first out in the morning. With the lunch break removed from the day's schedule in order to recoup lost mileage, the track went green and the Dane was able to rack-up 80 laps in the VF-24. Having performed both qualifying sims and race stints, and totalling 239 laps across the test, Magnussen's fastest lap of 1:33.053 put him P16 on the timesheets.
Hulkenberg clocked 89 laps, bringing his personal lap count to 202. With a successful race distance sim completed, the German and the crew ended the test with full crew pit-stops through the final hour of track time, and finished P11 on the day with a best lap of 1:31.686.
"So today we completed our first qualifying sim, looking at the low-fuel car balance, and then we completed two race simulations - one with Kevin, one with Nico," said Ayao Komatsu. "We successfully achieved all of this, despite the track issues today. It's been a very, very good day basically.
"Our race simulations show that yes, we've got lots more work to do, but at the same time we've got a base car that we can actually race. Considering the qualifying performance - we haven't worked on it at all, today was our first time looking at it, but again, it was decent. We've had a very good start to the season with all this preparation in testing. I'm very happy and my thanks to everyone on the team."
"You never get all the answers you need and you always want more time, as three days of testing - and splitting those days with two drivers - is limiting," added Magnussen. "Given the limited time, I think we've done a lot, got some good impressions of the car and the focus is trying to be good on Sunday. We've been doing a lot of high-fuel race running, trying to address that issue, and I think we're going somewhere. We haven't fixed the issue completely but hopefully it's enough to make a difference on Sunday. I expect it to be very close between all teams again this year."
"Today we got through the program and did what we wanted to do, so that was good," said Hulkenberg. "We completed a race run as well - I haven't seen it compared to anyone else's - but now we've got lots of impressions after three days of testing, lots of data and things to analyze. We've been able to do some experiments like most, as that's what you do in testing, and it's been good, positive. I have no idea where we stand, or what it's worth, but we'll get that answer in a week. It's early days, but from in the car, from where I sit, if I compare the car to last year, it does feel better and like we've made a step in the right direction."
"We've had three useful days and managed to make good progress understanding the W15," said Andrew Shovlin. "Compared to last year's car, the feedback from the drivers is very different and more positive, which is encouraging. The team has worked hard to iron out the handling flaws that were integral to the W14, and it's great that we seem to have put a number of those problems behind us.
"Over the course of the test we've made good steps on our understanding of the car. The task of the next few days is to pick through the results and put together the best package to take into the race weekend. It's never easy to make predictions on pace from testing, as all teams are quite effective at hiding their pace when they want to. It's clear that we are in a much better position than 12 months ago though. We've got a busy few days ahead now making our final preparations for the season-opener, and we're already looking forward to the race weekend and the season ahead."
"We've had a solid three days," added Russell. "We managed to get through all of our planned programme, despite the stoppages. The car has been handling well and correlates to the feeling we had on the simulator ahead of coming here. We've got a very good base to build from.
"We're aware that there's a lot more lap time to find. We knew that would be the case ahead of the test, and Red Bull are looking very strong once again. Nevertheless, I'm confident that we're in a much better place than we were 12 months ago. The team at Brackley and Brixworth have done a great job to get us into this position and with a car that is a step in the right direction. We now need to focus on firstly getting the most out of the package we have and secondly, adding more downforce and trying to close that gap."
"Overall, it's been a really good test," said Hamilton. "I'm really proud of everyone trackside and those back at the factory. Every single woman and man has been working tirelessly, both at Brackley, Brixworth, and here in Bahrain. It's massively encouraging and great to see everyone working so well together. The focus, determination, and communication is the best I've ever seen.
"We know we've got work to do and we're not yet where we want to be. We knew that would be the case coming into the test though. We've got a great platform to build on. We'll go away and work hard over the next couple of days to go through all the data from the test. I'm really excited for the start of the season next week and we'll be heading into it in good shape."
Over the course of the test, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso took turns in the AMR24. Fernando was behind the wheel for Wednesday and Thursday's morning sessions, with Lance driving the car into the evenings.
For the final day, Lance got behind the wheel in a limited morning of running. Fernando concluded the team's test programme under the floodlit circuit.
"We have tried to learn as much as possible during this test and focused on ourselves," said Alonso. "It would be nice to have the predictions and knowledge of where everyone is but that is not the case in testing. The AMR24 is a step forward from last year and we just have to see how big of a step forward we have taken compared to everybody else. We will know more next week after Qualifying. It was good to get a number of laps on the board over the three days and I feel fit and ready to go for the start of the new season."
""It's great to be out testing," added Stroll, "I'm especially pleased to be here after missing last year's pre-season test. Time in the car is so valuable for all of us: we're gathering data and learning about the AMR24 with every lap we complete. We've made good use of these days to run a lot of parts and set-ups - the car feels better every day - and we've not had any reliability issues. It's still too early to make any big predictions, but I'm looking forward to first race of the year next week."
"A successful test from our perspective," said Mike Krack. "We have focused on our programme and gradually worked through the usual system checks and test items. The AMR24 has run reliably and we have a good understanding of how the car is working. We have validated that we have taken a step forward over the winter - delivering gains and performance in key areas.
"It is a long season ahead and we have multiple projects in development - some of which are very promising. We respect the competition, and this test has demonstrated that the whole grid will be incredibly close this season - but we are excited for what is ahead. I want to thank the test team at the track and everyone back at the AMRTC for getting us fully prepared for the start of the season. Everyone is looking forward to going racing next weekend."
Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas's 113 laps brought the team's tally to 380 laps. The data collected throughout the three days will now be thoroughly analysed by the team, as part of the final preparations ahead of next week's season opener, the Grand Prix.
In the final day of on-track action, some precautionary checks over a suspect technical issue on the C44 cost the team time in the morning. Despite Valtteri's session coming to an early stop, the great job of the garage crew allowed Zhou to resume activities early in the afternoon and complete the team's programme of the day.
Overall, it's been three productive days for the team, gathering important information that will be crucial to better understand the C44 ahead of the start of the season. After intense months of hard work developing the team's 2024 challenger, the home team back in Hinwil also provided important support for the trackside crew, allowing them to successfully complete the three-day programme.
"We have learned a lot throughout these three days," said James Key. "We had a very logical approach; much like every other team we came with a list of items we wanted to tick off, and many new bits we wanted to get to know better. I believe we managed to go through them all. The C44 ran as it should, completing about 380 laps across three days - a testament to the good job done by the team back home in Hinwil during the winter. Everything seemed to be running as expected - there were no surprises in the garage, and despite having to cut Valtteri's session short earlier today due to the red flag and to run some precautionary checks, we still managed to achieve all that we had planned for the day.
"Overall, it's been three productive days full of learnings for our team, and all the data gathered will provide a solid foundation to work on ahead of the first race of the season. Of course, there's no point talking about lap times, as each team had its own priorities during testing, and we will surely learn more about each other's performance next week. Still, the feeling at the end of testing is positive, and we'll be aiming to move forward in this direction throughout the season."
"Today was a bit more challenging as the red flag cost us quite some running time," added Bottas. "Ending the session with some precautionary checks resulted in a few missed test items and laps, but we still managed to get through our planned priorities. We were able to learn more about the C44 and we feel reasonably prepared for next week's race. It's still quite difficult to evaluate the true performance and the competitive field, but we are confident in the data we collected. Now, it's all about analysing, learning and improving ahead of the race weekend."
"We had another good day where we focused a lot on our long runs and managed to complete a second full race distance," said Zhou. "We got through our programme and experimented with various setups and configurations to draw our conclusions. It's challenging to evaluate the full potential, especially with a completely new car, and we'll continue working and making strides over the next few days to be ready for the upcoming weekend. However, the true performance and how we rank compared to the other teams is yet to be seen until the first qualifying and race. We feel good and will use the remaining days to learn and find margins for improvement."
"We had a good day," said Williams Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson, "to complete the pre-season test. We did another 120 laps and this time without any car issues. Alex was able to build on the work done by Logan yesterday and continued to evolve the FW46. Across a range of fuel loads, the car was behaving well, and Alex was able to complete a decent race simulation using two of the tyre compounds that will be available next week.
"Inevitably at this time of year, there is a lot of scope to push the FW46 harder and to develop it quickly. We have a few days to analyse the data from this week and decide how we build the cars for FP1 and how we look to introduce the first round of car updates. There is a lot to do but we have made a solid start and have a good foundation to build on.
"Firstly, we've got a decent car to go racing with," added Albon. "I do think we struggled a little bit with the car across day one and two with just how different it is, struggling to rebalance it, but we made some big headway in making the car more driveable.
"With the changing car characteristics, we shifted some of our historical problems to different areas. Still, we've been able to fix some of these but unfortunately in the process, we've picked up a few things we didn't like. Despite this, we did a bit of a radical set-up today and this worked out for the better.
"Looking at the rest of the grid, the midfield has closed up a lot with everyone making a big jump from last year, so it's all quite equal throughout the field. This year is going to be all about the fine details and potential tracks that better suit others, so there are going to be lots of interesting battles."
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.
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"I'm happy with what we've achieved over the last three days and feeling ready for the start of the season," said Norris. "We encountered one or two setbacks here and there, but that is to be expected during pre-season testing. The important thing is we have a good understanding of the car now, we have plenty of data to go over and will come back stronger for the race next weekend. Overall, positive signs and we have a better understanding of the work we have to do. Bring on race week!"
"That's the end of testing," added Piastri. "We had a smooth, fun session today and got plenty of laps on the board, which was good. We're in decent shape and more or less where we expected to be, but we still have some work to do. It was useful to get some race sim work done today, we rarely get to practice doing races in testing, so it was nice to have that opportunity.
"We'll see what everybody's got next week and that will give much more of an indication as to where we are. I'm excited and ready for the first race."
"Over the last two seasons, winter testing has been inconsistent with several reliability issues, and we didn't feel we approached the first race very prepared," admitted Andrea Stella. "This year the situation is much improved, we approached pre-season testing more prepared and this confirms the positive journey of the team. Having said that, we couldn't do all of the laps that we had planned due to red flags, a fuel system problem yesterday and another problem today. We can improve further, but it's been a positive few days overall.
"Going into the Bahrain Grand Prix we have to be prudent because some teams seem to have made a good step over the winter and Bahrain is not the ideal track layout for our car. We will find out where we are in qualifying next Saturday.
"I would like to thank the entire team trackside, back in Woking, and our colleagues at HPP for their strong efforts and work throughout the test and in getting us to this point. It's been a long few days but we now take the time to rest, reset and review everything ahead of the first race next week."
"There have been no major surprises," said Mario Isola. "Once again today, we saw the teams working hard on adapting the new cars to the tyres, especially when it comes to reducing overheating as much as possible, a phenomenon that progressively came to light last year and on which we are focusing our attention, looking ahead to 2025."
"Testing went fairly smooth," said Tsunoda. "We didn't exactly follow our run programme as there were some issues with the track, but we responded well to them. I felt the car has made a good step forward compared to last year, so I'm happy with it so far. The balance has improved, and especially the front felt strong. We still have to find more with the rear, but it's moving in the right direction.
"I completed many laps over the last couple of days and it was a good experience that allowed us to collect good data and help find the limit of the car. Looking at the timesheet, we're not last, but it's difficult to know where we are compared to the rest of the field, so I'm excited to start racing again next week."
"I think testing has been good," added Ricciardo, "and we've definitely developed the car from last year. I completed plenty of laps and feel pretty fit. Unfortunately, there were some issues on track with the drain, and we were worried we wouldn't get our race run in, but luckily, we did. I did some short runs on Day 1 and 2 and race simulation this morning. In terms of performance, I think we're where we expected to be. We're aiming to fight in the midfield group and we'll try to make the most of what we got.
"Overall, it was a smooth test, so I don't think we leave here with any concerns. We made some gains and know where we are, but if we want to make sure to fight for Q3 and points consistently, there's certainly a bit more we need to find."
"It was great to see the Visa Cash App RB come alive in all its beauty and for the team to come back together, fully motivated and happy to push with the new identity," said Peter Bayer. "We're also happy to see the positive reaction of our fans, whom we thank for their continuous support. Now, after a very productive three-day test, we have lots of data to analyse, and I think that'll help us be well prepared for next week's first race of the season here in Bahrain."
"It's been a great moment to see the Visa Cash App RB team officially hitting the track for the first time," added Laurent Mekies. "We have a fantastic group of people from the factories in Faenza, Bicester and also from our PU partner Honda, and it has been a privilege to work alongside them for the first time at the racetrack. Of course, we have a long path ahead to build and develop our team to the level of competitiveness we want to target. However, we have started in a positive manner in Bahrain this week and executed a solid programme which will be key to our in-season development. There's no doubt that Race 1 will jump at us very quickly now, and we certainly have a lot of work to do to be prepared at the level we want to be at.
"Finally, I would like to thank Daniel, Yuki, and everyone from our factories for the hard work and the fantastic spirit shown so far. We can't wait to be back next week and start racing!"
"It's definitely been a positive three days for us," said Alan Permane. "The car has run very reliably all week, and we've gathered a huge amount of data. We focused our efforts on quality testing, taking time to do setup changes and understanding the car. We've mixed that with some long runs and did a full race distance with Daniel today, which went faultlessly. We'll now use the upcoming days to analyse the data we've collected and learn from it, to take not only into the Bahrain race weekend but of course, the upcoming races.
"I'm super happy to be here and really looking forward to this season. I've found an analytical team that I feel uses what we've gathered to move the car and team forward. Everyone here at Visa Cash App RB is very excited about the upcoming season, and we look forward to finding out more about the pecking order after next weekend's race."
Check out our Friday gallery from Bahrain, here.