Perhaps it was veteran driver Fernando Alonso who put it finest throughout pre-season testing this yr.
“I think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that [they] will not win the championship,” said the Aston Martin driver to Autosport.
That twentieth driver? None aside from Max Verstappen. If you thought the sphere would catch as much as the three-time Drivers’ Champion forward of the 2024 Formula 1 season, suppose once more. Similar to final yr, Verstappen and Red Bull’s RB20 look to be the dominant mixture as soon as once more, leaving drivers like Alonso questioning when — or even when — they could get an opportunity at a race win.
“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,” added Alonso.
Just take what we noticed from the ultimate three periods of pre-season testing this yr. Verstappen sat out the fourth and fifth periods, Thursday’s afternoon session, and Friday’s morning session. That opened the door for one more driver to high the timing sheets, and on each events, it was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.
But then Verstappen climbed into the RB20 to shut out the week for Red Bull, and inside ten laps he was again atop the timing sheets, almost a half-second forward of Sainz. While Charles Leclerc ultimately pulled forward of him — with a stint on the C5 softs — Verstappen then posted a protracted race simulation on the C1s which was extremely constant, and a factor of magnificence. Over 14 laps or so Verstappen posted lap instances starting from 1:36.805 to 1:37.559 on the more durable compound.
We are reaching almost mythic ranges with Verstappen, much like Tiger Woods throughout his prime, or Michael Jordan amidst his. The feeling that everybody else is combating for second, and who brings home the most important {hardware} every week is already settled.
In some ways, the very best comparability may be Larry Bird. In the early years of the NBA’s Three-Point Contest, the Boston Celtics star gained the competitors within the first two seasons. Then forward of the third installment, Bird walked into the locker room able to defend his title. He checked out his competitors after which asked them a simple question.
“Who’s coming in second?”
Bird then went out and gained for a third-straight yr, with out taking his warmups off.
That was an exhibition, nevertheless.
Verstappen appears to be doing this for actual.
Here are the outcomes from the ultimate day of F1 pre-season testing, in addition to another ideas:
Is Ferrari “Team Two” on the grid?
Photo by Peter Fox – Formula 1/Formula 1 through Getty Images
Now that pre-season testing is within the books, we are able to attempt to take inventory of how the groups stack up.
Behind Red Bull, that’s.
If there’s a staff that grabbed the title of “best team behind Red Bull,” it might be Ferrari. Sainz topped the timing sheets on the second day, albeit with a lap on the softer C4 compound, and was quickest within the morning session on Friday. Even after Verstappen took to the observe and jumped to the highest of the leaderboard Friday afternoon, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari bolted on a set of C5 softs, and the Ferrari driver put the SF-24 again to the highest of the timing board to shut out the week.
For many observers, Ferrari took a step ahead this week with their race tempo. As we noticed a season in the past, their one-lap tempo was sturdy, however their race tempo was missing, and tire degradation points plagued the staff over the course of the yr.
But diving into a few of the information from testing, as our associates at The Race did on this prolonged bit of study, highlights that Ferrari’s race tempo may be a lot stronger than it was final yr. They discovered:
“[b]oth Red Bull and Ferrari made race simulation runs, at much the same time and running the same combination of C3, C2 and C1 respectively for the three stints. In this comparison the Ferrari looks suspiciously good, with a respective pace suggesting Carlos Sainz would have beaten Sergio Perez by… a full minute over the 57-lap distance.”
Of course, the same old caveats concerning testing apply. But if that is really indicative of Ferrari’s race tempo, they could very properly begin the season on the entrance foot.
Team Principal Frederic Vasseur spoke with Laura Winter on F1TV on Friday, and whereas downplaying the outcomes of testing and including the same old caveats, he famous that each Leclerc and Sainz had been way more snug within the SF-24 than they had been in final season’s challenger. He additionally acknowledged that the staff was forward of the place they had been final yr on the identical stage, with respect to each race tempo, and “consistency.”
Whether that is sufficient to problem Verstappen and Red Bull on the entrance, nevertheless, stays to be seen.
More tempo from Haas on Friday
Over the primary two days of pre-season testing it was obvious Haas had one aim:
Address their brutal tire degradation points from a season in the past.
The story of their 2023 season might be summed up with the Canadian Grand Prix from final June. Nico Hülkenberg, due to their sturdy one-lap tempo and a little bit of weather-related luck, put his VF-23 on the entrance row in qualifying, proper alongside Verstappen.
He completed fifteenth.
“It’s pretty clear now, obviously the result is not what we should be doing and it’s very disappointing. I think we know where to look, the issue is as soon as we get into traffic and behind cars, our degradation is immense, we cannot get the tire performance back and we just slip back,” stated former Team Principal Guenther Steiner after the race. “We can clearly see it, as soon as we get away from free air and start to fight, we just degrade. We know really what we need to look for, and we’ll be looking for it. We need to put our heads together and try to find a solution to this and not hide behind good qualifying results.”
The focus for the staff in Bahrain, at the least over the primary two days, was that situation. Haas centered on longer stints, making an attempt to resolve the riddle which plagued them a season in the past.
“Following on from yesterday, we continued our program on tire management and high-fuel performance. Nico drove in the morning, and even with the disruption he had that made the session a bit shorter, I think we got the basic answer we wanted. We handed over to Kevin in the afternoon and he ran for five hours, and it was a pretty good session again,” stated Team Principal Ayao Komatsu within the Haas post-session media report. “We got lots of good data and confirmation on what we wanted to run, so I’m pretty happy with the last couple of days. Tomorrow, because we’ve had two decent days, we may change the program a little but I’m looking forward to another productive day of testing.”
Well, it does appear to be they modified this system a bit.
Because each Hülkenberg and teammate Kevin Magnussen confirmed a bit extra tempo on Friday. Magnussen drove the morning session for the staff, and when that got here to an in depth he was up in P7, not on the backside of the sphere as he had been all through the week:
Then it was Hülkenberg’s flip, and he confirmed much more tempo, pushing up into the highest ten and highlighting simply what the VF-24 may very well be able to. He would ultimately slide again as another drivers put some banger laps on the board, like Alexander Albon who bolted on a set of C4s and jumped into the highest ten.
Whether that tempo Haas confirmed on Friday will carry over into the season stays to be seen, however definitely indicators of life from them as pre-season testing got here to an in depth.
A couple of late-session runs of notice
As the minutes ticked away in Friday’s last session, a couple of totally different drivers bolted on softer tires and posted some glory laps to shut out the week.
We famous Albon, because the Williams driver posted a lap good for P5 with a set of C4s. He was not alone, as Yuki Tsunoda jumped up into P3 for a time period with a lap performed on the C4s. George Russell at Mercedes ended the day in P2, simply 0.046 behind the time posted by Leclerc on the C5s, however together with his lap approaching the C4 compound.
Then there was Zhou Guanyu, who completed the session in P3. due to a robust lap on the C4s.
All very notable and spectacular, however a couple of cautionary phrases.
First, the C3 would be the softest compound subsequent week, as each the C4 and the C5 will probably be unavailable.
Second? Verstappen nonetheless completed P4, together with his run approaching a set of C3s.
Ominous, certainly.
What can we make of Aston Martin?
There are two groups that we’ve not addressed but throughout pre-season testing this yr.
One of these? Last yr’s testing darlings, Aston Martin. A yr in the past the staff introduced the AMR23 — or the third Red Bull as some described it — to Bahrain and made an emphatic assertion because the season started. The energy Aston Martin confirmed in testing a yr in the past carried over to the beginning of the marketing campaign, as veteran driver Fernando Alons started the season with three-straight podiums and podiums in six of the primary eight races.
However, whereas they began sturdy the staff pale down the stretch, falling from an early P2 position within the Constructors’ Championship to finish the yr in fifth.
Entering this season, there’s one phrase floating across the staff: Development. Speaking on the launch of the AMR24 Dan Fallows, the staff’s Technical Director, addressed how the staff took a “pragmatic” strategy to the top of 2023, in addition to how Aston Martin must do higher to win the “in-season development races.”
“I think it’s no secret that we took a pragmatic approach to the end of last season,” Fallows advised the media following the launch of the AMR24. “We wished to guarantee that we used each alternative to actually be taught the teachings that we would have liked to be taught on AMR23.
“We recognised that we needed to do something that was going to teach us lessons for 2024 and we did. And I think to come out of that having achieved good performances towards the end of the season, culminating in a podium in Brazil and [fifth] place [in the championship], which was a great result for us, and then to come out of that and then to obviously have that momentum going into this year, I think that was the really key bit for us,” added Fallows. “Having been through that process and continuing that momentum into ’24, I think gives us a lot of confidence going into this season.”
Being higher over the course of the season is a precedence at Aston Martin in 2024.
“We’ve seen, particularly last season, but also the season before, the in-season development races is absolutely fierce, and we want to be as competitive in that as we have been going into the new season,” continued Fallows. “So that’s what we’ve been really focussed on is to make sure that we’ve got a good, stable basis for us to go and develop the car and keep those updates coming and keep the performance coming.”
Photo by Philippe Nanchino/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images
While Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll hung across the center of the sphere over the primary two days — Stroll completed P7 on Thursday with Alonso in P12 — the AMR24 confirmed a bit extra combat on Friday. Both drivers had been up inside the highest ten for some time, earlier than ending the day in P8 (Alonso) and P13 (Stroll).
Is this an indication that they’ve one thing for the sphere once more in 2024? Alonso hinted at that following Thursday’s periods. “It’s hard to know exactly where we are compared to our competitors because we all have different [programs], but we have completed what we intended to do in these first two days and that is positive,” said the veteran driver.
“In the second half of last season, we understood a lot about the areas we wanted to work on and we’ve applied our learnings. Everything feels good but I’m sure everyone has made a step forward too, so it’s a question of who has made the biggest step relative to their position last year,” added Alonso. “We’ll keep working on the car and understanding it in the time we have left, and also in the first couple of races, but everything is feeling positive and we’ve done a good job so far.”
Last yr, Aston Martin roared out of the gate, however pale down the stretch. Can they keep away from that mid-season swoon in 2024?
What can we anticipate from Alpine?
The different staff we’ve not mentioned but throughout pre-season testing?
Our associates at Alpine.
There have been some optimistic indicators for Alpine over the previous few days. When the primary day of pre-season testing drew to an in depth, Pierre Gasly was up in P5, having put 61 laps on the board. “It’s been a positive day where we ran our programme accurately and completed all our intended laps. That is the most important thing about testing: to run reliably and complete plenty of laps,” said Gasly. “The initial feeling in the car is good but now it is important for us to dig into the data, do our analysis and continue to unlock performance.”
Then on Thursday it was Esteban Ocon’s likelihood to complete within the high ten, as his finest lap put in eighth on the timing sheets. Ocon even loved a style of racing motion, as a couple of drivers bunched up late within the afternoon session round Turn 1.
“It was a very long session today with the extended running in the afternoon. We missed some track time in the morning due to the stoppage, but we managed to get it back and finish the programme we wanted to complete in the morning,” said Ocon.
“We improved the car throughout the day, and it was nice to try the car in different conditions, which are more reflective of what we’ll see next weekend in the Grand Prix. We had a bit of racing towards the end which was also fun. This does not usually happen at testing but this time everyone was pretty eager and it was very exciting on the run down to Turn 1 with a number of cars side by side and sparks flying everywhere. I’ve definitely got the appetite to go racing now!”
The greatest query dealing with Alpine getting into 2024 is whether or not they extract extra out of their energy unit. By almost any metric they had been the sixth-fastest staff final yr, and in line with this evaluation from The Race their power unit was around 0.5 to 0.9 seconds off the pace. Things received so dangerous for Alpine that the staff requested an exception to FIA’s energy unit freeze, believing they had been round 15 bhp behind the sphere.
That request was denied, and the staff discovered themselves in the course of the pack. They had been comfortably forward of Williams so their position in P6 was not challenged, but it surely was unreasonable to anticipate them to problem Aston Martin and the opposite groups in entrance of them.
However, taking a look at some information from this week, it may very well be cheap to conclude that they’ve taken a step ahead this season. Again, the usual caveats about testing apply, however take this information from F1-Tempo, evaluating Ocon’s quickest lap from Day 2 final yr, to this yr:
Both laps had been performed with medium tires, and as you may see Ocon’s finest lap this yr was over a second faster than his finest lap on day two a yr in the past. The 2024 lap, proven in decide above, was faster over the majority of the lap, however for the lengthy straight into Turn 1 in addition to a couple of corners in Sectors 2 and three.
Another signal may be the speeds over these two laps, proven right here from F1-Tempo:
Outside of that lengthy straight — indicated by the height alongside the left facet of that above graph and on the each proper — the A524 hit greater speeds over the remainder of the lap, typically by loads. For instance, that vertical white line notes the pace of each vehicles on the finish of the again straight, which runs from from Turn 10 parallel to the principle lengthy straight and into Turn 11.
At its peak the A524 hit 303 km/h. A yr in the past on the identical peak the A523 hit 292 km/h.
Once once more, the caveats apply, however Alpine may need addressed their greatest situation from a season in the past.
Prediction time
Okay, the time for speaking is almost performed.
How about some early predictions for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix?
The first one is simple: Max Verstappen will win the Bahrain Grand Prix subsequent week. One would possibly say he already has one hand on the trophy.
However, it does appear to be a giant combat is shaping up behind him for the opposite two spots on the rostrum. Ferrari definitely appears to be within the combine with Sainz and Leclerc, and McLaren additionally appears far forward of the place they had been a season in the past. Aston Martin may additionally have one thing to say in regards to the podium when all is claimed and performed, and you can not depend out Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Pérez.
A extra off-beat prediction?
Hülkenberg will get into Q3 and makes just a little noise of his personal.
