Within a week, Formula 1 will begin to play the first of the 23 dates on the calendar.
On the same stage, the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, this Friday the second of the three days of pre-season tests was completed with a worrying performance by Mercedes, especially when George Russell took to the track.
During the morning session, in which Carlos Sainz set the fastest time in the Ferrari (1m32s486), Lewis Hamilton did 72 laps and was eighth, but lost some track time after a small piece flew from his Mercedes and Fernando Alonso will step on it.
That prompted the seven-time English champion to pit for mechanics to carry out duct-tape repairs to the floor of the W14.
"It's hot and we just didn't have the ideal setup for these conditions, which is part of what you learn with a new car
," Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports, saying Hamilton's car was
"unbalanced "
.
McLaren didn't have a good time in the first session either, with Lando Norris ninth and well behind the other drivers, having trouble handling a shaky MCL60.
"Like everyone, we have to develop, so we're encouraged by what we see on the lap, but I think we'll go into the first race well short of our goals," said chief executive Zak Brown.
For his part, at Red Bull, Checo Pérez's first contact with the Bahrain track was not good.
The Mexican was eclipsed by Verstappen, who on Thursday had opened the pre-season tests with the best times of both sessions, and could only finish seventh, more than a second behind Sainz in the fastest of his 76 laps.
In the afternoon, Verstappen was the dominator until the Chinese Guanyu Zhou snatched the best time from him by 40 thousandths by stopping the clock in 1m31.610s with the softest compound (C5) less than half an hour from the end.
Unlike the day before, when he did 157 laps, the Dutchman was able to do little (47) although he got his time on the C3, which will be the softest tire in the first Grand Prix of the season.
On the way to what may be his third consecutive title, it seemed that in a few laps Verstappen lifted his foot off the accelerator in the last sector so as not to pulverize the marks.
In Ferrari, meanwhile, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc took Sainz's place and was eighth (1:32.725), but with a C2 tire.
The bad news of the batch was given by Russell, the one in charge of generating the only red flag of the day.
The Englishman, who had said a while before that the team might not be ready to fight to win when the season starts next week, was
only able to do 26 laps
when a hydraulic problem took him out of the competition, according to the steering wheel of the car and that then the team confirmed on their social networks.
Mercedes, thus, sealed just 98 laps, a number that does not reach the three figures expected for a preseason session.
In addition, it became the second team to cause a suspension after the electrical failure of Felipe Drugovich's Aston Martin caused it on Thursday.
"When we were here last year, there were a lot of red flags about porpoising. We didn't know how to fix it, we were a bit lost. Definitely, in terms of sentiment, it feels like a step in the right direction. Compared to how we were 12 months ago, things are much better, reliability has been strong so far. But of course, we have things we need to improve,"
Russell had told
Motorsport
before suffering the hydraulic failure.
While the times they set in test week give teams an estimate of pace for the season with different setups, and title contenders might hide their real pace while smaller teams may seek publicity with fast times on one lap, the pace of Alfa Romeo is auspicious.
Beyond the fact that Zhou's time was the best in pre-season tests, it is also important that the Chinese driver was one of those who turned the most (132), along with Logan Sargeant (154) -Sainz's shooting guard in the first session and the one who did the most kilometers- and Alonso (130), who finished third with the Aston Martin in the second round.
In the final part of the two sessions, different race situations were tested, such as the appearance of the virtual safety car, yellow and red flags and starts, one aborted and the other "real".
This Saturday the third practice day will be held at the Sakhir track, the last one before the start of the season.
look too
Formula 1: Michael Schumacher and his relationship with Max Verstappen, the most emotional of the premiere of "Drive to Survive"
Formula 1, on the track for the first time in 2023: the best photos of the tests in Bahrain, with Verstappen in front
