Formula One Vault

Prixview – Bahrain Test

The 2023 season begins with a double header of testing and the opening race of the year at the Bahrain International Circuit. The circuit over the past two years has become the home of winter testing, given the normally stable weather conditions and layout of the circuit which gives the teams the opportunity understand their new cars with a focus on evolution from last year’s car.

Each driver will get a day and a half plus three hours of practice next weekend ahead of qualifying and the opening race of the season. The next fortnight marks the twentieth anniversary of the race being held in Sakhir, the circuit has the mixture of straights and a technical midfield section. This should give the teams the opportunity to assess the progress they have made since last years race.

The watchword over the next fortnight in the deserts of Sakhir is the evolution from last year’s big technical overhaul, also their maybe some indications of the impact of the rules aimed at ‘leveling up’ the field with reductions for the teams which finished higher up in the championship with things like the sliding scale of development introduced last year.

The Bahrain International Circuit has a mixture of long straights and a tight infield section which creates opportunities for overtaking. But its high speed that matters on the three straights and that means that good downforce and speed are very important, as well as breaking at the end of the straights.

The circuit has a mixture of long straights and a tight infield section which creates opportunities for overtaking. But its high speed that matters on the three straights and that means that good downforce and speed are very important, as well as breaking at the end of the straights.

The infield middle section is the more technical and twisty sector, that will be an interesting section to watch over the coming weeks as it will give us an idea of how closely cars will be able to follow each other. The circuit normally favours cars which are good at high speed and high downforce, Mercedes being strong through most of the hybrid era.

The switch from Barcelona to Sakhir was made in 2021, not only because of the pandemic and restrictions but because the weather is warmer and more stable in the region compared to Europe and the distance to fly new parts in is reasonable with between a six to seven hour flight. This allows new parts and replacements to be flown overnight.

The test is also a twilight test, track action starting two hours later than it would do in Europe and finishing later in the evening after sunset. This poses the question for the teams do they go for qualifying runs in the final hour of the day, or mid-afternoon. The first four races see either night qualifying or early evening qualifying, the first standard afternoon session isn’t till Miami in May.

The big question going into this test, although you always need to be cautious in testing with the true performance unlikely to become clear until FP2 and qualifying next weekend. Teams can under perform using sandbagging to mask their true performance, but as Mercedes proved last year, we don’t always know but we expect the top teams will be about the same. They could also opt not to bring updates until the final session or Friday practice next weekend.

The regulations are stable however the thing to watch is have the teams evolved from 2022 and have they followed a similar route to Red Bull. Mercedes really stood out and we now know they went through a lot of the porpoising, which we know continued for much of the first half of the year.

This is an important for the teams who were on the back foot last year, eyes will be on how far they have come and the lessons learned for this years cars. Mercedes are tipped to re-join the top two, or even be ahead of Ferrari as the regulations are stable compared to last year.

Mercedes on average have managed around two race distances on each day in recent years in testing, which has been one of their strengths over the last decade. They don’t tend to go for the performance runs until the sixth session on track, on Saturday afternoon in this case. The thing to watch however is whether they haven’t brought the bouncing and porpoising issues they had last year.

Alpine was last year looking like the team to beat in the midfield, while their main rivals McLaren season unraveled with a nightmare test and opening weekend. McLaren admitted that last year’s ‘nightmare’ test put them on the backfoot for the entire year, but this season is about evolution from last year’s car. But who else can join that battle this year.

This test is also about figuring out for several teams how their new driver line ups as well as new team principals, all needing to start figuring out the new dynamics within the teams’ work. As well developing the cars so they are in a good place going into the opening race of the year and this is the only permanent circuit on the calendar until Imola in May.

Sakhir is used for testing now following the pandemic for its stability in weather and typical conditions we will see in the northern hemphre spring and summer. Though their was a day in 2009 when testing had to be abandoned due to a sand storm, with very little running.

The key thing to figure out both in the test and at the opening race is reliability and which cars are quicker in a straight line or race trim. Teams ideally want both, but its always interesting to see what strategies teams are using to test and develop the cars from last year. I think all the teams will be on top of the porispising and bouncing, though their could be a few fine tuning issues to resolve, and that is what testing is about.

The teams have a slight advantage with Bahrain also being the opening race as they will have a lot of information going into the race weekend, we know their can be a lot of changes between the end of testing and the opening race of the season. But the true performances will only become clear during the race weekend.

I think the learning will be as important as we saw last year, this is only the second year of these regulations and there will be changes to this years cars. Red Bull’s biggest advantage in their dominance last year was Adrian Newey, who worked in the previous ground effects era. The challenge for the other teams is closing that gap alongside figuring out how to extract the most from these cars.

Facts and figures

Test		Formula 1 Pre-Season Bahrain Testing 2023
Venue		Bahrain International Circuit,  Sakhir, Bahrain
Configuration		2005 Grand Prix
Circuit Length		5.412 km (3.363 mi)
Lap record	Race	01:31.447 (Pedro de la Rosa, McLaren, 2005)
	Qualifying

Fast Facts

• Bahrain boasts the world’s largest underwater theme park. Sprawling across more than 100,000 sq metres, Dive Bahrain is genuinely mind-boggling. Truly a haven for scuba enthusiasts, Dive Bahrain even comes with a sunken Boeing 747 complete with coral studs and a healthy coat of rust.
• A German driver has been on pole at seven of the 19 Bahrain Grands Prix held since 2004.
• Bahrain testing had to be abandoned for the first time because of a sandstorm in 2009 after just 90 minutes into the session, the first time a day off running in an official test not caused by rain or snow. The 2019 test was abandoned because Pirelli didn’t bring wet tyres.
• Less than half of the races held at Bahrain International Circuit have been won from pole. Just eight of the 19 races at the track have been won from the very front of the grid. The furthest back win here was for Sergio Perez in the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, he started fifth.
• Both Charles Leclerc and George Russell almost won on their first outings for Ferrari and Mercedes in Bahrain. Engine issues in 2019 prevented Leclerc taking victory being past by both Mercedes while the following season at the Sakhir Grand Prix a pit stop issue cost Russell a fairy-tale Mercedes debut.

Event timetable

Driver line up

This table will be updated regularly when teams announce line up for each day 

What we will be looking for

The three days of testing are the most important, all the teams will have work to do the key thing is to figure out does the car work in terms of reliability and then they will work on being fast. The thing we need to watch for is evolution from last years cars, hopefully all the teams will have understood the porpoising and bouncing which for some may need fine tuning given they will have new cars built.

Red Bull dominance last year makes them the team to beat, they will have the advantage given the cars dominance last year. But don’t forget it seems an age ago their were problems in they had in Sakhir and Melbourne, we now see for most teams they are pretty reliable straight away from the very start. Mercedes springs to mind that ten years of being reliable out the box was the foundation of their multiple championships.

Ferrari we saw last year were really strong both in the test and the race, we saw them fight Red Bull in the opening race. Their strategy is often going for out right pace setting the headline time, but last year it looked to change slightly as the looked favourite based on the package. Only for as we know, they should be able to resolve these with the changes at the top of the team need to jell together for a successful season.

The other thing which will be interesting to see is whether any of the teams make a jup towards the top three we know there is still likely to lead, but how big is that gap is between the top three and midfield. Alpine had the advantage over McLaren for most of the season, the reason is a good example of why this test is important.

Get it wrong during this test or unearth major problems, like we saw with Mercedes and the porpoising as well as McLaren, you could be facing months looking at fixing the issues

2021 vs 2022 Race Data

2022 Lap time comparison

 Tyres