10/03/2022
NEWS STORY
AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly set the pace on the opening day of the Bahrain test, as Mercedes initially suggests style over substance.
While the Mercedes W13 might have grabbed today's headlines, neither Lewis Hamilton nor George Russell threatened the stopwatch, as both finished over 2s off the pace.
Though it is far too early to be making predictions, far less suggesting that Mercedes has an issue, with the first race only a week away it seems improbable - impractical even - to think that the German team is sandbagging.
Though the W13 continues to suffer porpoising issues, between them the drivers completed 122 laps, though Sergio Perez completed 138 in the RB18.
Talking of the Mexican, on a day of few dramas the Red Bull driver was responsible for one of two red flags this afternoon when he beached his car in the gravel trap after spinning at Turn 8. With just a few minutes of the session remaining it was decided not to restart.
Earlier in the afternoon the session was stopped after the aero rake on Stroll's car became loose.
While the day was incident free a number of teams have work to do overnight having not had the most auspicious starts to the test.
Fernando Alonso had limited running in the Alpine this afternoon, while Alex Albon suffered a hydraulics issue which affected his steering.
Though he set the pace, Gasly was one of several drivers seen taking a serious pounding over the course of the day as for some the porpoising phenomenon remains unresolved.
Taking over from Charles Leclerc this afternoon, Carlos Sainz missed much of the first hour of running, while Norris lost even more time with an undisclosed issue.
While Bottas, Albon and Perez gave us an early example of how successful the rules overhaul might be in terms of allowing cars to follow one another more closely, it was a brief battle between Alonso and Stroll that hopefully gave a real glimpse of things to come.
Having expressed unhappiness with the Canadian's driving, when Stroll ran wide in the final corner the Spaniard was through. The pair battled for several corners, threatening to bang wheels before the Aston Martin finally pulled ahead.
Though there was plenty of long running the race sims are expected tomorrow along with the qualifying sims.
Along with the aforementioned porpoising issues, a number of drivers appeared to have difficulty remaining on the black stuff, with Turn 10 proving a particular problem, both Mercedes experiencing several lock-ups.
Following a difficult test in Spain, today proved far more positive for Alfa Romeo, with Bottas completing 66 laps, more than he completed over the whole of the Barcelona test.
Plans for Haas to test on Sunday or even after the other teams have finished on Friday and Saturday were scuppered hen a number of teams, believed to include McLaren, Alpine and Alfa Romeo objected. The American outfit missed this morning's session after its freight - including the team's cars - was delayed.
All in all, if today was the appetiser it fell a little flat, other than the excitement surrounding the W13's sidepods. However, with the opening race just a week away, over the next two days we can expect to see the pressure ramp up.
A number of updates are expected to be introduced tomorrow, with much talk of Red Bull having a surprise up its sleeve.
We shall see.
"It's good to be finishing the day in P1," said pace-setter Gasly. "But we're always asked at tests how we're doing, and I think we've got to focus mainly on ourselves and our performance, not at the timing screens as, at the moment, it doesn't mean much until we get to qualifying next week. Of course, it's always nice to be top of the rankings, but at the end of the day I know we've got some stuff to work on, so we can get more out of the car.
"Overall, it's been a good day. There are lots of positives with this car but as a racing driver we always focus on the negatives, so we'll be using the next two days of testing to really get to grips with this car and work to feel more comfortable in it. I'll be working hard with the engineers tomorrow while Yuki takes over the driving of the car.
"There are new things to discover with this car every time you go out on track, so we have to make the most of every session and learn as much as we can before the first race here next week."
"We gathered a lot of very useful data in Barcelona," added Jonathan Eddolls, the team's Chief Race Engineer, "and the team has been relentlessly analysing this and producing development parts in preparation for the final test before the first race. So, we came here with a very long test list to continue to understand the characteristics of the AT03. Conditions are very different to those in Barcelona - the track was considerably hotter here, and it was generally windier, so the car was not quite as easy to drive this morning, compared to our expectations. We spent some time understanding this before getting into set-up work.
"We completed the usual aero rake running to start the day and then completed a series of further aero test items, before switching our focus to mechanical tests. We then used the softer compounds, including the C4 and C5, which are a little too soft for the aggressiveness of this track, but it is still good to give the driver experience of these before their first use on a race weekend. We closed the day with pitstop practice. We have gathered some very useful data from today's running and have a lot to analyse tonight - the results of which will define the plan for Yuki, who will run tomorrow.'
First out for Ferrari was Charles Leclerc, who completed 64 laps running the C2, C3 and C4 compound tyres. He completed the programme established for him, setting his best time of 1:34.531 on the C3 tyres.
During the lunch break, the mechanics carried out the usual checks and changed the set-up on the F1-75 to suit Sainz. The Spaniard went out on track around 15.30 and did 52 laps. He too used the C2, C3 and C4 compounds, setting a best time of 1:34.359 on a set of C3s. Overall therefore, the F1-75 completed 116 laps.
As was the case at the Barcelona, the team had several items on the job sheet for both drivers, including car set-up, which is particularly relevant, given that the opening round of the season takes place at this track next week.
Reliability testing was also on the agenda, particularly taking into account the high temperatures here (air 37 degrees, track 47). Additionally, various solutions were tried to resolve the phenomenon of porpoising that is affecting all these new generation cars.
"Our first day of testing is behind us," said Leclerc. "The conditions we found here are very different to those in Barcelona, especially as it is much warmer here.
This morning, everything went well. We completed the number of laps we set out to and ran all the tests we had planned to, so I'm happy with how it went.
The lap times are not representative and we are just focusing on ourselves now, keeping our heads down and working well."
"Another good day of testing for us," added Sainz, "continuing where we left off in Barcelona, with similar run plans but starting to check different set-up windows.
We missed out on a final run on C3s, but in general we managed to test two or three things that were very important for us and we managed to put together a good day of running with no issues.
"The mechanics are working hard in the heat, which is never easy, so I thank them for the effort. We still have a couple of long days ahead, but hopefully they will be very productive ones."
With Daniel Ricciardo reporting unwell, Lando Norris was on duty for the entire session, the youngster completing 50 laps on his way to posting the sixth best time of the day.
"A tough day with a few problems, which set us back a lot of laps," admitted Norris, "meaning we couldn't do the long runs. We still maximised today as much as we could and as much as what the issues allowed us to do. Hopefully the next few days, we can make up for that – we just have to change the programme around a little bit in how we're trying to understand the car.
"It's tricky because it's a very different circuit: a lot bumpier; a lot hotter. Cars are getting pushed to a very different limit to the past week of testing in Barcelona. There're many things for us to understand and we'll keep learning over the next couple of days."
"It has been a busy first day," added Andrea Stella, the Woking outfit's Executive Director, Racing. "We spent most of the morning investigating brake cooling configurations, with a methodical step-by-step approach that delivered the required information, preparing us for the rest of the test and the Bahrain Grand Prix next week. In the afternoon, we spent time developing the set-up of the car. That was very useful, and we found good directions. A tough but fruitful day overall. We're all hoping Daniel is feeling better tomorrow."
Alfa Romeo had a busy and successful day, with Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas completing more than a century of laps behind the wheel of the C42. With this mileage in the bag, work will continue tomorrow with the drivers once again sharing the day, Valtteri driving in the morning before Zhou returns for the afternoon session.
"Today was definitely a step forward from Barcelona," said Zhou. "We were able to do a good number of laps, which was a way to build up familiarity with the car. Every time you step into the cockpit you get a little more confident so a day like today was really good. Of course, there's still a lot of work to do and we need to understand the car better: we will try a few things, in different conditions, in the next few sessions but we can be happy about the work we have done today."
"It was a good day in the car, getting a lot of laps under our belt and following our run plan until the red flag at the very end of the session," added Bottas. "With this mileage, I was able to first get a proper feel for the car and then focus on some set-up work, finding how the car responds, what it needs. It's nice to feel and see the progress throughout the day: the team did a good job since Barcelona, it was a good recovery after a challenging start but we are heading in the right direction."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Bahrain, here.
Lewis Hamilton was behind the wheel of the W13 for this morning's session as the team took its first steps with a significant upgrade introduced since Barcelona. He banked valuable learning on the C2 and C3 compounds, running early on with a rake to gather aero data on the new package.
George Russell followed in the afternoon session under the floodlights, working through a detailed test programme to better understand the balance and drivability of the new-look W13. Both drivers broke through the 60-lap mark to harvest precious data as the learning race continues.
"Compared to Barcelona it's been harder to get the car well-balanced around the lap here," admitted Andrew Shovlin. "We do seem to have made a bit of progress through the day but it's always difficult to judge accurately here as the falling temperature tends to flatter everything you do later in the day.
"We've got quite a lot of work still to do regarding validation of the update kit and will continue the data collection programme over the next few days so it's a bit early to say whether everything is working as expected. There is certainly more to find in getting the balance right between slow and high-speed corners, and there's also a bit too much tyre overheating.
"So, plenty to keep us busy for the next two days but we are on a steep learning curve with the new car and tyres - we'll analyse what we have from today and hopefully make a step forward for tomorrow."
At Red Bull, on board the new RB18 for the first day of running was Sergio Perez. Largely focusing on the harder end of the tyre spectrum, Perez got through a marathon 138 laps of the 5.4km circuit as the team worked through a busy run plan.
There was one small blot on the team's Thursday report card, however, as the Mexican's running ended a few minutes before the flag when he had a slow-speed spin in Turn 8. The incident was minor, however, and caused no damage.
Despite his late off track moment, the Mexican driver was pleased with his first day in Bahrain. 'It was a very productive day," he said, "we did plenty of laps and gathered a lot of information. It was good to get a read on the car on a different track with higher temperatures. It's obviously very different here compared to Barcelona. Bahrain is one of the roughest circuits on the calendar so you are naturally more rear biased. In general, we had a good pace and we have plenty of information to go through, there is so much to learn at the moment. Towards the end of the day, after the safety car I had cold tyres and just lost it and unfortunately went into the gravel. It ended the session early so hopefully everyone can have a nice rest now!'
"We had a good day today," added Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, "in one day we did the amount of mileage we would usually carry out across an entire race weekend. That means being able to gauge the reliability of parts across the race weekend in one day and we are in a good place. A few things fell away here and there, but there was no massive time lost in the garage due to big issues.
"We were not focused on pace today and we ran a programme we felt would be useful to learn from, so we're really pleased that we managed to get through so much work. As we have ticked the box of race distance today, it may not be as critical tomorrow, so we will still do fairly long runs but maybe not with pit stops. Every day we are learning more and getting better."
At Alpine, Esteban Ocon took driving duties in the morning session, completing 42 laps, with Fernando in the car during the afternoon-twilight session in much cooler conditions.
Alonso posted 24 laps with a small issue limiting his running for a large part of the session. The problem was identified and solved to allow him some track time under the lights during the final hour of the day.
"I completed half a day driving today and we managed just short of a race distance in that time," said Ocon. "It was good to feel how the 2022 car works in Bahrain, which is very different to Barcelona with completely contrasting conditions. We focused more on one compound of tyre today to begin to understand the degradation and performance of it.
"Our focus was not on full outright performance and we're still learning on every run we do and that is the absolute target of these test days. I'm happy with my half day and I'm back in the car tomorrow where we hope to add more laps and gain more valuable information on this year's package."
"It was nice to be back driving the car," added Alonso. "Things went quite smoothly for Esteban this morning, but we did encounter a small issue with the car after the lunch break. So, we didn't complete as many laps as we'd have liked in the afternoon.
"Despite this we still learnt a lot about our car in the hot conditions and we tried some different things with the car setup. We'll take what we learnt today into tomorrow and Saturday."
"It wasn't our smoothest day of running," said Pat Fry, the French team's Chief Technical Officer, "with the usual niggles of testing popping up, which sometimes occur when you're running through an extensive programme.
"It looks like porpoising is less of an issue here than in Barcelona, which is certainly interesting. We identified an issue with the car after lunch and that limited Fernando's afternoon. We were able to resolve the problem but, of course, adding as much mileage as possible only aids what you learn about the car and we fell a bit short on that front today.
"For tomorrow, Esteban is in the car to continue our learning and preparation for the first race. We have two busy days on track coming up."
Pietro Fittipaldi was first to get behind the wheel of the VF-22. The American team was unable to run in the morning session due to freight delays earlier in the week, but the Brazilian driver was first out on track in the afternoon, getting to work on the C2 tyre. After 17 laps, he swapped compounds to test out the C2 prototype tyres to benchmark against the standard specification tyre.
His first run on the test set featured a 12-lap stint, before returning to the C2 tyre to add another 12 laps to his tally. The final run of the day featured the C2 proto tyre once more but was unfortunately cut short by a red flag after Sergio Perez beached his car in the gravel, signalling an early end to the first day.
Fittipaldi ran a total of 47 laps, setting his fastest time of 1:37.422 on the Pirelli C2 proto tyre. Mick Schumacher will commence running on Friday before Kevin Magnussen gets his very first taste of the VF-22 in the afternoon session.
"Today was great," said Fittipaldi, "finally getting to drive the VF-22. It's a new car, a new generation, so it's very valuable and important to get those laps in and it's a very different car to drive, so it was interesting.
"We were focused on doing a lot of laps - that was the main goal since we didn't get as much in Barcelona - so we were running harder compounds and a lot of longer lap simulations. We accomplished our goal and I'm very happy with today. It was very important to gain experience with this new car."
"The team did a fantastic job to get the car ready to go out after having 36 hours less than all other teams," added Guenther Steiner. "We got out just for the afternoon session, but we need to make it up in the next days. All in all, it was quite a good day of running - we're getting a better understanding of how the car works and we just need to continue like this.
"We did 47 laps which, if we can do continually over the next days, I'm almost happy."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Bahrain, here.