After many speculations, hypotheses and forecasts on the sidelines of the winter tests, Formula 1 finally arrives at its debut in a race weekend. In Sakhir, the 20 protagonists of the 2022 World Cup completed the first two free practice sessions of the Bahrain Grand Prixproviding the first very interesting indications on the race pace in view of Sunday.
As already used to last season (with the reduction of Friday sessions to one hour), several teams have chosen to diversify the work plans between the two riders to test both the Medium (C2) and Soft (C3) compounds. However, there are those who, like Ferrari and Red Bull, have focused their activities on understanding softer rubber, which seems to behave very well, showing neither very great degradation nor accentuated graining despite the lower than average temperatures.
We then cross-referenced the data of seven teams, highlighting the strengths and criticalities that emerged from the first long runs to give a key to the rest of the weekend. A premise, however, is a must: compared to last year, the teams have to deal with cars that are still very immature, so it is not possible to exclude great steps forward from now to the start of qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
As can be seen from the table (and the overall graph immediately below), Max Verstappen is undoubtedly the one currently best placed over the long haul. The Dutch world champion was the only one to run exclusively under the 1’38 “wall with Soft tires, making three laps (the first of his stint) on 37” 1. Exceptional times and, at the moment, unmatched: only Charles Leclerc – with the same tire – printed a time trial with petrol loads just a few thousandths from Max, but his simulation stopped after just two full laps. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the behavior of his Ferrari over the medium-long distance, also considering that Sainz averaged over a second in his 5-lap run (against 9 for Red Bull # 1).
As already mentioned, the Soft compound appears to perform very well in milder temperature conditions than those tested last week at Sakhir. Verstappen aside, the melee pack behind him looks pretty compact: Perez himself with the second Red Bull, Sainz’s Ferrari and Russell’s Mercedes have shown that they can fight on almost equal terms for the podium. All this net of the obvious problems manifested by the Silver Arrows which, if not resolved or at least mitigated in the last free practice sessions, could play against Russell and Hamilton himself.
The McLaren simulation, on the other hand, is disastrous. The Woking team lost Ricciardo again, this time stuck in the pits by a hydraulic problem, and with only Norris on the track he was over two seconds higher on average than Verstappen. In general, however, all Mercedes powered cars suffered on this first Friday of the year, paying also from the point of view of top speeds.
Finally, a consideration on who has ridden with rubber average. The long run of Fernando Alonso with the Alpine, even faster than Hamilton overall. The updates brought by the French manufacturer for the first GP seem to work well: even on the flying lap, in fact, Esteban Ocon (who badly damaged his right belly in PL1) was slower than his teammate also on the flying lap .
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