Russell smashes Verstappen's benchmark in new race simulations

The first test week in Bahrain got underway on Wednesday, February 11, and Red Bull immediately caught the eye, particularly with Verstappen at the wheel. The Dutchman rolled out eye-catching race simulations and, according to team principal Toto Wolff, was running as much as a second per lap quicker. The long-run data backed that up, highlighting some sizeable gaps.

Isack Hadjar was given the task of opening week two, but his morning was compromised by a water system issue that kept the RB22 largely confined to the garage. Only in the afternoon was he finally able to log meaningful long-run mileage, by which point Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari had already banked a solid and productive morning of running.

Last week, the role of title favorite was more or less transferred from Mercedes to Red Bull due to the long runs. Now, however, it appears Mercedes is the faster team. Both drivers beat Verstappen’s benchmark on the hard and the medium tire.

To illustrate the difference, we included Verstappen’s runs from Wednesday morning, February 11, in the race simulation table, as he ran on multiple compounds that day. On Friday, February 13, he did his long runs only on the soft tire.

A caveat, of course, is that Verstappen’s benchmark was set a week ago, and track conditions can be vastly different in the new week. We also don’t know how much fuel the cars were carrying or what engine modes they were using. Even so, consistency can indicate the current pecking order.

Kimi Antonelli was behind the wheel of the Mercedes in the morning session and posted strong times. The driver from Bologna was about eight tenths faster in long run 1 (LR1 in the table), and with long run 2 (LR2 in the table) he was a second quicker. Charles Leclerc completed two long runs on the medium tire and fell short of Verstappen’s times.

The Mercedes driver was also significantly faster than the two drivers from the other top teams: Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. Norris, however, ran on the hard tire, making comparisons tricky. Leclerc did run on the medium tire, and the gap between him and Antonelli is more than a second.

In the afternoon, Hadjar was able to complete more laps than in the morning. He ran several short long runs in the afternoon, with his second long run coming in the final phase of the session. When reviewing the long runs in the afternoon session, we have to take into account the changing conditions, namely sunset.

Hadjar completed his race simulations on the medium tyre, while George Russell and Oscar Piastri opted for both the hard and the medium compound. Lewis Hamilton only ran on the medium tyre.

The table below shows that Hadjar is also faster than Verstappen’s benchmark (1:38,803) on the medium tyre. Russell is considerably quicker than Verstappen’s benchmark, dipping about two seconds under it. On the hard tyre, Russell is also faster in the afternoon than what Verstappen showed on the hard tyre (1:37,876) last week. However, the gap on the hard compound is only two-tenths.

McLaren is also edging towards the times Verstappen set last week. For now, Piastri is still slightly slower than Verstappen. As mentioned, winter testing remains guesswork, but it is noticeable that the long runs are getting quicker. It will be interesting to analyze what Verstappen puts on the board on Thursday. The four-time world champion will be in the car all day.