VIDEO | What did we learn from F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain
Formula 1 pre-season testing is complete and the season is now less than one week away, can you believe how fast that has come around?!? Felt like just yesterday that the season ended in Abu Dhabi. But enough dilly dallying around here’s what we learnt from pre-season testing in Bahrain.
Aston Martin moving on up
Lets start with Aston Martin and they look very impressive especially amongst all the confusion surrounding Lance Stroll at the moment. The Aston Martin seems to be a big upgrade on last season and it has been totally revamped and good because they needed it after being somewhat disappointing last year. Whenever Fernando Alonso was on track he looked rapid and he seems hungry to succeed with Aston Martin. Felipe Drugovich did have a few issues on day one but don’t read to much into that. If Lance Stroll can try and keep up and at least be competitive then they are a serious force and they won’t be looking over their shoulders but rather forward to the top not good for Mercedes and my predictions which you’ll see later in the week. They are a force to be reckoned with!
McLaren's woes
Next up McLaren and they are the polar opposite to Aston. They don’t look good at all. They had reliability issues all weekend. Last season they had issues with braking and they had a similar problems this weekend with their wheelbrows and their braking. They were very open with this information admitting they missed aerodynamic targets and the first few weeks of the season could be very long, slow and tedious. You know it’s bad when teams are saying it could be worse than even McLaren think! If you believe reports they could be fighting close to the back of the field at the start of the season not near the front of the midfield list we’ve become used to. 2022 started similarly for McLaren and it turned out okay for them largely because of Lando Norris so they’ll be hoping for a quick turnaround!
No more blankets
Lets go off the track for a second and focus on tyres and more specifically tyre blankets. F1 bosses are planning to ban tyre-warming blankets in the near future and this has not gone down well with the drivers. The proposals are set to come in next year and they are on sustainability and cost-saving grounds. However, Lewis Hamilton was far from impressed. "I've tested the no blankets, and there is going to be an incident at some stage. So, I think it is the wrong decision.” Were his words. If he’s not impressed I think it is a non starter.
Title favourites
Back on track lets talk about title favourites post testing. It’s clearly Red Bull. They look so comfortable it’s not even funny. Max Verstappen ultimately finished way down the time sheets but he was on Pirelli’s C3 tyre, he didn’t even bother testing the faster ones and he just looked so at ease in what is simply a progression of last season’s car. His teammate was the fastest of any driver on any tyre across the three days. Like it couldn’t have gone much better for Red Bull they are the standard. Ferrari meanwhile haven’t gone backwards but I think their expectations may have been tempered somewhat. Mercedes meanwhile look like they’re playing catch up again so not a great week for them nor my predictions.
This was a script written by Joe Tyrrell for a video on the GP Blog YouTube channel.
