This Test – Bahrain
Hello welcome to This Test, well 2024 has started with a week to go until qualifying the headlines are, is the field closer or has Red Bull been sandbagging? If testing is true and as always we don’t have the full picture from testing but it’s looking as if its going to be another tight season.
General News
Former FIA sporting director Steve Nielsen has returned to FOM/Liberty Media in a consultancy role after quitting his job with the governing body late last year. Nielson was seen in the Bahrain paddock wearing an F1 shirt, although he does not have an official full-time title.
Nielsen has been a familiar face in the F1 paddock since the 1980s. He has previously worked for Team Lotus, Tyrrell, Benetton/Renault, Honda, Arrows, Caterham, Toro Rosso and Williams, mostly in team manager or sporting director roles. He left Williams to join F1 as sporting director in August 2017, as one of the first key hirings made under Liberty Media’s ownership by Ross Brawn.
Nielson was effectively the head of COVID operations during the pandemic playing a key role in getting the 2020 season up and running following lockdowns. Nielsen joined the FIA with F1’s blessing in January 2023 with a similar job title.
The FIA noted at the time that he would “be responsible for overseeing all sporting matters including the ongoing development of race control and the remote operations centre, as well as future updates to the sporting regulations”.
At the end of his first season, he decided not to continue with the FIA and left to set up a consultancy business. In that capacity he has returned to F1 to undertake similar duties to those he covered previously, albeit not in a full-time role.
Former driver and team owner Wilson Fittipaldi passed away on Friday at the age of 80. He was the older brother of double world champion Emerson and father of F1 and Indycar driver Christian had been ill for some time.
He had been hospitalised since Christmas Day, which was also his birthday, after he choked on a piece of meat. His family was unable to clear his airway, which triggered a cardiac arrest. He made his debut at the non-championship 1971 Argentinian GP.
Re-cap
Max Verstappen was fastest with a 31.344 on the opening day using the C3 tyre to go a second faster than the McLaren of Lando Norris who set his fastest time during his morning stint. Carlos Sainz was fourth fastest a tenth behind Norris, setting his best time at nearly the same time as his former teammate. Both going around a second off the Dutchman on the C3 tyre.
Sainz was fastest on day two with a 25.921 on the soft tyre during his afternoon stint when he managed eighty-four laps. Sainz was three-quarters of a second faster than the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, the Mexican getting his first taste of the RB20. Lewis Hamilton was fastest of the morning drivers but was a second off Sainz in the final classification, the Mercedes driver was over half a second faster than his 2025 teammate Charles Leclerc at lunch.
Charles Leclerc was fastest on the final day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit with a 30.322 on C4 tyre, which put the Ferrari nearly half a tenth faster than the Mercedes of George Russell. Guanyu Zhou was third for Sauber four tenths off Leclerc. Zhou and Russell’s fastest times came in ‘qualifying/power hour’ for next weekend, as he switched focus from long to short runs.
Red Bull
F1 has called on Red Bull to complete its investigation into facing allegations of inappropriate and controlling behaviour by its CEO and team principal Christian Horner towards a female colleague. Horner who has led the team since 2005, has denied the allegations.
F1’s statement read, “We hope that the matter will be clarified at the earliest opportunity after a fair and thorough process. We have noted Red Bull has instigated an independent investigation into internal allegations at Red Bull Racing. We will not comment further at this time.”
When the allegations emerged two weeks ago, Red Bull issued a statement saying it was taking the matter “extremely seriously”.
The company said it was launching an “independent investigation” which was “being carried out by an external specialist barrister” and would “be completed as soon as practically possible”.
Speaking publicly Horner said last week, of Red Bull’s new F1 car on Thursday, Horner said: “I obviously deny the allegations that have been made but I’m going through a process and fully respect that process.”
Red Bull’s lawyer is expected to compile a report which will then be submitted to the company’s board. The identity of the lawyer has not been made public, nor have any other details about the scope of the investigation. But its understood as the ‘complex investigation’ and we shouldn’t speculate while the investigation is ongoing.
However speaking to Red Bull TV Helmut Marco says it is right that Red Bull takes its time to evaluate all the evidence in detail – rather than rush a decision for the sake of it.
He said, “As you know, this is an internal investigation. The sooner a result is available, the better because of course, rumours and other stories are bound to sprout due to the long duration. The long duration of this investigation is not their fault. They are endeavouring to [have] a fair investigation and then react accordingly.”
Sergio Perez has praised the bravery by the team in changing its car and going aggressive for this season following their dominance last season. When the team unveiled its car it had several bold design ideas, especially around the sidepod and engine cover area.
Asked if he was surprised to see elements of Mercedes design on the new machine, Perez admitted: “Ah, yes. A bit. But at the same time, it just shows how much this team is looking to move forward and pushing all the boundaries. It’s really great to see. It just shows the hunger that there is in this team. You know, we had such a dominant car last year that you wouldn’t imagine us changing the concept as much, and I think it’s really brave from Red Bull to do that.”
While last year’s RB19 was efficient all-round, Perez said one area in particular had been improved. he added, “Essentially our low-speed seems to be looking in a better window, but obviously until we hit the track we will not know.”
Perez was nearly three hundred points behind Verstappen last year, he knows he needs to be on the heels of the Dutchman if he is to retain his seat for 2025. But the team are clear they need better performances from the Mexican and be just behind him this season.
One team has described the team’s pace as “frightening”, that was despite the problems on day two with Sergio Perez. Perez’s day saw him have a brake fire as well as a PU issue but he still managed to do over a hundred laps with his focus being on getting more consistency with race pace which was a big problem when compared with Verstappen last season.
Max Verstappen says that his the team has “pushed the limits” by opting for a radical change of concept with the new RB20. Red Bull has despite that dominance last year has changed its concept but still is seen as the team to beat this season, Verstappen fastest on day two.
Verstappen revealed he was first shown what the team was planning for its 2024 car at the end of last year, but he said “I don’t ask a lot of questions about” the concept, instead trusting his team’s design department.
Asked by Motorsport.com if he thought changing from such a successful concept was the right strategy, he said: “Well, at the time I wasn’t even too concerned with that to be honest, I saw the drawings and thought, ‘So, that looks nice’, but honestly I was thinking more about the upcoming holidays at the time!
“In the end, it doesn’t matter what the car looks like either. But what I do like a lot about the team is that they haven’t been conservative and that they have pushed the limits again by changing the concept.”
Verstappen said he had no concerns about the team appearing to follow a path that didn’t work for Mercedes with the W13 and W14, which proved so difficult to work over the last two years. But said “As long as it works, I don’t even care what the car looks like.”
Regarding the way other teams have followed the RB19 route, he said: “Yes, but of course that was to be expected. When you have a year like we had last year, I can understand that a lot of teams go a bit towards our concept. I think our technical team just sees more potential in how the car looks now, and developing that direction compared to what we had.”
Despite the encouraging lap times in Bahrain, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner remains cautious about the true picture, while acknowledging that Adrian Newey and his design team have made a “bold step” with the concept. We know Newey is a brilliant designer and it could have been easy to just evolve the dominant car but there is a point where a concept can’t be developed any more
Mercedes
One of the points of intrigue on the opening day of testing was the front wing of the Mercedes, but Toto Wolff says the team are comfortable with the legality of the front wing. The team has appeared to use its normal run plan in testing where they under perform and focus on data gathering, leading to them only being P12 on day one.
But it was intrigue over the wing design which proved an early talking point due to the presence of a minuscule flap that connects the top part of the wing to the nosecone, with the Brackley team seemingly having found an ingenious loophole two years after F1’s regulations were changed to ban detached wing elements as part of a wider push to improve the ability of cars to race more closely together by improving the airflow given off by them.
As usual with innovation in F1, teams’ design departments regularly run their ideas past the FIA during the conception phase for clarity and guidance against the regulations, and Wolff says Mercedes are comfortable with their position.
Wolff said, “What has been put on the car is always following an exchange with the FIA, all through the process. It’s no such a thing that you have a clever idea and then you bolt it on to test and you think that could be or couldn’t be challenged. That is a long process of dialogue that happens over the winter. So I feel we’re in an ok place.”
The question seems to be whether its in the word of F1’s chief technical officer Pat Symonds, are “within the spirit of the rules”. These regulations as we have said repeatedly were to create closer racing, by cleaning up some of the aero surfaces and vortex of dirty air allowing that very turbulent air that is coming from the front wheels aside – one question then ‘is that really within the spirit of the rules?
Following the opening day of testing George Russell says he believes they can now attack medium and high-speed corners with the new W15 following two difficult seasons with the new car’s predecessors.
Throughout 2023, both Russell and Hamilton didn’t have confidence in the rear of the car but that trait appears to have been addressed. Russell said, “We can attack the medium and high-speed corners without the rear end snapping out. And we feel like we’ve made a really good step in terms of the consistency of the car.”
“We’ve now got a car mechanically where the aero guys can go in focus on just building downforce upon that, whereas in the past, whatever we did aerodynamically there were underlying issues with the race car that took a while to understand, and so on.”
Asked what the team is still missing, he said: “More downforce. When the car feels nice, but it’s not quite on the pace, you just need to find downforce in the right places.” Russell like any driver wants more downforce and is aware of the challenge which remains to close the gap to Red Bull and get ahead of their opposition.
Asked about an impressive first day that saw Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB20 clear of the field by 1.1 seconds, he said: “Probably as you’d expect from Red Bull, they’re in such a great momentum at the moment. They started these new regulations on the front foot, and they came here and have been solid ever since.”
Hamilton had his first taste on day two spit between data gathering, he turned his attention to race simulations and single-lap evaluation in the afternoon. The seven-time world champion reckons the team have “clearly made an improvement” with this year’s car, saying it is “much nicer to drive”.
Russell said on Thursday, Mercedes seems to have traded a car that “felt like it was going to bite us every single corner” for one that allows him to “attack the medium and high-speed corners without the rear stepping out”.
Ferrari
Team principal Fred Vasseur insists that 2024 is not a transition year for the team ahead of the arrival of Lewis Hamilton next season. Inevitably, the signing of the seven-time world champion as a replacement for Carlos Sainz has suggested that Ferrari has its main focus on the future.
But he says the focus of the team remains on this year with the team looking team principal Fred Vasseur insists that 2024 is not a transition year ahead of the arrival of Lewis Hamilton next season. The signing of the seven-time world champion as a replacement for Carlos Sainz has suggested that Ferrari has its main focus on the future.
However, Vasseur insists that this season remains the priority and that all efforts are being made to propel the team forward. He told Motorsport.com, “No, this is wrong, 2024 won’t be a transition year. It’s a quite an important season for us and I’m fully focussed on this. I think the best way to prepare something is to do a good job.”
“It means that we are focussed on ’24, we want to get the best, we want to win races, we want to continue on the path of 2023, and we won’t be at all thinking about 2025.” This is the typical line I expected from Ferrari who always focuses on wanting to win, but the Frenchman says that the mindset is one of continuous improvement.
Vasseur is adamant that the combination of Sainz and Charles Leclerc will continue to drive the team forward in 2024. he said, “If you have a look at last year, we had a very positive evolution all over the season. But we had some stages of the season when Charles was performing a bit more, when Carlos was performing a bit more.”
“Into the recovery of the team, between the first part and the last part, I think the drivers played a decent role. We need to have this kind of evolution in a racing team. And we are there today.
Ferrari’s drivers feel their car is better to drive than last year, Leclerc suggested on day the team’s new car may be less erratic than its predecessor and that the team has a good base to build from. Leclerc said, “In terms of drivability, the car is a lot better compared to last year. But last year after the test, it was very, very difficult to push into a direction, because we just didn’t know what the car was doing.”
“We would get into a corner and we didn’t know whether we will have extreme oversteer or extreme understeer. Which was a big problem.”
Expanding on the improvement compared to a year, he said: “In terms of driveability, the car is a lot better compared to last year. Last year after the test, it was very, very difficult to push into a direction, because we just didn’t know what the car was doing.”
I think that it is a good base but there is still that question lingering which we can’t answer until after the race, however, the consensus appears to be that Red Bull unfortunately remains quite a bit ahead.
McLaren
Team principal Andrea Stella says that improved rear grip is one of the key gains on the new MCL38 compared to its predecessor. It was a much better test this season compared to the nightmare test they had which carried into the Grand Prix last year leading to them spending much of the first half of 2023 on the backfoot.
McLaren has enjoyed an encouraging two days of testing in Bahrain so far, although it lost some valuable track time with a fuel tank issue on Thursday, which interrupted a race run. he said, “I think some of the weaknesses have been improved. For instance, we are happier with the grip at the rear axle, which was one of the aspects that we wanted to work on. Overall there is more grip in the car.
“There are some aspects that we still have some work to improve, save the fact that the major performance opportunity remains overall grip. It’s not like you need to correct features, you just have to put more grip on the car, which mainly comes from aerodynamic performance.”
Looking at the cars running with Norris across all three days he was a tenth faster on day two and then two tenths faster on day three, showing I think they have a good base to improve the car this season. Last year it was such a big turn around and it could be more difficult this year starting further forward.
Stella said that it was “good news” that the car has performed as predicted so far, especially given that it contains some novelties relative to last year’s MCL60. He also hinted they have more development in the pipeline and were confident in the concept.
Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso has made a bold prediction saying nineteen drivers already know from pre-season testing in Bahrain that they will not win the championship in 2024. the two-time champion believes that reigning constructors’ champion Red Bull will be another step ahead given the ‘surprisingly’ extensive changes undertaken for the RB20, which features Mercedes-style canons on the engine cover and vertical sidepod intakes.
Asked about the early indications from testing, Alonso said: “I don’t have a crystal ball to know what the others are doing. I think Max is the world champion and Red Bull is dominating the sport. Also, the concept that they presented this year, it’s also a surprise.”
“At the moment, we just have to watch them and see how they perform. I think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that [they] will not win the championship. It happens 99% of the time in your career. This is a brutal sport.”
Alonso is the most experienced driver on the grid, and there is this general feeling that Red Bull are the team to beat though the gap has narrowed but the sandbag questions will remain.
When this was put to Alonso to preview Aston Martin’s form, he again talked up the chances of Verstappen and Red Bull – the team having won twenty-one out of twenty-two grands prix last year – possibly even surpassing that strike rate.
He said: “I think it’s difficult to tell now [if we have a race-winning car]. I would say, I think after seeing Max and the Red Bull car this year, there are less chances for everybody to win a race this year. But this is how it is.”
I think its too early to say and if you said last year Red Bull are going to win all but one race, we would have laughed. Indications suggests that Red Bull is very fast but are they going to be as dominant this year?
Alpine
Pierre Gasly admits that his Alpine team “doesn’t look great” after the three days of testing. Alpine is one team with a major concept change and has admitted it could take time to optimise. On overall times for the three days, Esteban Ocon and Gasly were sixteenth and seventeenth.
The car looks in the limited information we have, not seeing at this stage the speed trap figures, to be the tenth fastest team on average. While on balance the A524 is not actually the slowest car in the field, the team is still far from where it wants to be.
Gasly told Sky Sports, “To be fair I haven’t really focussed on others because there’s been so much going on our side. I don’t think we look great. But at the same time, we still have a couple of days to really understand everything we’ve done.”
“We’ve put the car upside down, done a lot of tests. So hopefully, some analysis and answers will bring us some more performance. And then, we’ll find out, no one will hide any more next Friday.” The Frenchman called for patience saying it could take time to unlock performance they want from the car. Gasly stressed that it was important that the team understood what it needed to work on ahead of the first race of the season next week.
Alpine are as Gasly said isn’t going to be in the mix going into next weekend’s opening race, but says Esteban Ocon was giving very similar feedback.
Williams
Alex Albon says that while Williams has resolved many of its major shortcomings from last year but pre-season testing in Bahrain has revealed fresh issues with its 2024 car. Last season the British-Thai driver guided the team to eight points finishes as the team climbed from last to seventh in the constructors’ championship, proved particularly weak through low-speed changes of direction, under braking and through longer-duration fast corners.
During his morning stint on day two, he managed forty laps before a driveshaft issue ended his session. Albon, who acknowledged that the 2024 car had introduced new problems of its own, said: “We haven’t done so many laps but, generally, the feeling is good. We had a big task last year trying to focus on this year’s car, trying to get rid of some of the issues that we’ve been having consistently throughout last year.
“We seem to have a couple of corners at this track, actually, that really highlight the problems. It’s nice to know that we have fixed a lot of the problem areas from last year. But there are some new things that we have to iron out. So, part of the learning curve. But it’s going well so far.”
The issue with the car seem to be around wayward balance, which is highlighted best at Turns Nine and Ten. Albon believes that the team was going to hit the ground “jogging” as opposed to ‘running’.
RB
Daniel Ricciardo has urged the team to be cautious despite a promising start to testing with the new VCARB 01 car in Bahrain. The Australian finished Wednesday’s session in fourth overall, a second off.
Despite the promising start to testing Ricciardo doesn’t believe that Wednesday’s position was representative. Ricciardo said, “I think, start of the season, we need to be a little bit cautious. I think the target as the season goes on is the front of the midfield. But I would say now where we are, it’s probably more in the midfield.
“I’m not sure yet at the front. But that is certainly our target. I know some people are quite excited about us coming into the season, but I want to play it a little bit cautiously. We have a decent car, but we still have a lot of work to do, and the numbers we brought for the test, we believe there’s still some things to find.”
The team brought an upgrade in Abu Dhabi, which Ricciardo says has given them some momentum going into this season. There have been further changes for this season and his “general feel and balance is actually okay. So it’s now just finding a bit more lap time. But feeling on the car is okay.”
Yuki Tsunoda agreed the package run at last year’s finale had been a useful step towards the new car. Adding, “We put the upgrades in the last race of 2023. Many of the teams didn’t do it, and also that’s how we were pushing in 2023, so there’s bit of time to find where we can improve.
Ricciardo continued RB’s encouraging start to their new era with a second successive top-five time in pre-season testing. a collective 244 laps over two days is a solid achievement, with both Ricciardo and teammate Yuki Tsunoda pleased with the way the test has developed.
Estimated qualifying pace based on simulations:
- Red Bull +0
- Ferrari +0.22
- McLaren +0.38
- Mercedes +0.56
- Racing Bulls +0.72
- Aston Martin +0.84
- Alpine +1.03
Sauber +1.0
- Williams +1.11
- Haas +1.30
Estimated race pace based on simulations:
- Red Bull +0
- Mercedes +0.20
- Ferrari +0.22
- McLaren +0.43
- Aston Martin +0.62
- Racing Bulls +0.73
- Sauber +1.09
Williams +1.09 - Alpine +1.25
- Haas +1.49
Source F1.com
What we learned
The feeling I have is that Red Bull remains the team to beat, despite that big change to the car, but the question is are they not showing too much during testing? If testing is true its looks to be a lot closer between the top three teams. But then we don’t know how much they have been sandbagging and we won’t know until qualifying next Friday where the pecking order going into the new season.
I think as we saw last year in testing the impact of restrictions on parts and other bits testing you need to maximise things. Aston Martin was again up there and there were very fine margins between the leading teams the leading times where half a second faster mid-afternoon on Friday. But we know come FP2 and Qualifying next weekend that we will get answers…
The consensus which has formed this week the teams just behind Red Bull might be even closer together than in 2023, which may create another frustrating season of imagining the all-time classic championship which could be taking place if Verstappen and Red Bull were magically erased from the competitive order.
The cars all look to be reliable and they still looks to be a top-five teams, Mercedes haven’t had I think the full picture in terms of outright pace but compared to where they were on the last few days in 2022 and 2023, they don’t have the ‘extreme’ bouncing and I think they have picked up and made a step from last year, but its whether Red Bull has made a step.
Reliably has got better in recent years a decade ago at this test when we had a huge regulation change was bad, we had break down, multiple red flags, not many laps. Their didn’t look to be many across the three days of testing, everyone looks to have made a step with the order remaining the same as 2023 but even tighter between rt
McLaren are in a much better place than they were last year they were in the top five and completed a lot of mileage across the three days making that fight for best of the rest very interesting going into next weekend. Ferrari are in that group, its almost as if going into the season its going to be a close fight but how close can they get to Red Bull. But its unlikely we have seen every teams full hand and we won’t probably see that until qualifying.
That’s all from This Test, we hope This Grand Prix will be back again next Saturday evening at 21:00GMT, This Week will be back on Sunday 12th March at 09:00. On race weekends we will try to bring you an evening edition at 21:00UKT and on non-race weekends we will publish at 09:00 UKT