Reading between the lines from F1 pre-season testing

You can’t pick a guaranteed testing order based on lap times, and this week in Bahrain showed exactly why.

Look at the headline laps and you see Carlos Sainz sitting at the top of by quite some distance, with his day two time of 1m29.921s leaving him 0.4s ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc. But both Ferrari drivers set their best laps on the softer C4 compound tire that won’t even be used during the race weekend in seven days’ time, gaining an advantage of around half a second over those who stuck to the C3.

Even so, that would mean the best C3 time of a 1m30.679s set by Sergio Perez doesn’t totally erase the tire offset, but there’s little to suggest there is any team other than Red Bull in serious contention for victory when the paddock reconvenes for next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

“I think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that [they] will not win the championship,” Fernando Alonso admitted on Friday, despite optimism within Aston Martin that it has cemented last year’s step forward. “It happens 99% of the time in your career. This is a brutal sport.

“It’s difficult to tell now [if Aston has a race-winning car]. I would say, I think after seeing Max [Verstappen] and the Red Bull two days ago there are less chances for everyone else to win a race this year. But this is how it is.”

After a mighty first day, Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing seemed to be flying under the radar with their new RB20. Motorsport Images

It might seem odd to be pointing to the opening day given the fact Verstappen’s best lap was 1.4 seconds slower than the best from Sainz 24 hours later, but the first day is traditionally spent scanning new cars, raising and lowering the ride heights dramatically and gathering as much aero data as possible.

And the RB20 was definitely a car that needed those kinds of duties carrying out, given the dramatic departure from its predecessor that it is. Technical director Pierre Wache admitted to me on the opening day that it was “a big risk” to change the car so much after the dominance of the RB19, but that it was required to stop rivals catching up.

So for Verstappen to go 1.1s clear of the field when doing that initial work on Wednesday, on a track that did not have the grip levels that would increase by the end of the week, and end up with a lap time that at least tire-corrected was within half a second of the fastest on the final day, hints at some serious raw pace.

Traditionally, teams that note such an advantage early on also tend to then ensure they don’t confirm it to the world or give away its full extent, and will run with particularly high fuel loads or detuned engine modes to slow themselves down.

Its rivals certainly believed that to be the case, with estimates varying from a half-second advantage (from Williams) to a full second (from Mercedes), and others sitting in between.

“I’ve no idea [where McLaren is], but honestly definitely quite a chunk behind Ferrari and quite a chunk behind Red Bull — I think they’re clearly a long way ahead,” Lando Norris said after a greatly improved showing from McLaren compared to the past two years.

“Apart from that we’re still not in a bad position; we’re probably just around that next pack, but those two teams definitely seem to have a decent advantage over everyone else.”