Verstappen was by far the fastest, but: "Lap times don't matter"

The two weeks of testing before the 2022 Formula 1 season begins are over. On the final day it was Max Verstappen who clocked the fastest time in his Red Bull Racing, but Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin stresses that the fastest time is not important to the team.

Red Bull had a trouble-free third day of testing in Bahrain. Sergio Perez drove in the morning, while Verstappen finished the day with the afternoon session. In total, Red Bull came up with a solid 96 laps on the third day in Bahrain.

Towards the end of the day, Verstappen was sent onto the track with a set of C5 tires, the softest ones that came with him to Bahrain. With that, he immediately showed that the Red Bull is fast, as he clocked a time of 1:31.720, making him by far the fastest.

In a Red Bull press release Rocquelin says that the time Verstappen drove is not important to the team: "The lap times are irrelevant. Today was more about putting together the lessons we have learned over the past few days." He says that Verstappen and Perez have tested all the tires in order to come to the first Grand Prix well prepared.

Rocquelin reveals that there were some minor differences between Verstappen's and Perez's tire distribution, but that the idea was the same: "To establish a good baseline with which we can start the race weekend and I think we achieved that.”