F1 | Let's give the numbers: the workaholic Haas in the Bahrain tests

The three days of pre-championship testing are already in the archive: the paddock's attention is entirely focused on the first GP of the season which will take place in Sakhir next weekend (remember that the race takes place on Saturdays!). We report the time table for the three days as a whole, highlighting in bold the best time and the tire compound used, as well as the number of laps completed.

We will not go into general assessments that we have already made by analyzing this table, but we prefer to highlight some aspects in the following sheets which can give some more specific indications on the type of work that the individual drivers and teams have carried out.

Here is the summary table of the testing times in Bahrain

Kevin Magnussen, Haas F1

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Magnussen covered 4.1 GPs in a day and a half

The workaholic of the only testing session was Kevin Magnussen a bit of a surprise: the Haas driver, last on the time table with his V-24, is actually the leader of the American team that worked on researching the reliability, one of the Achilles heels of last year's team. The Dane put together 239 laps, equal to 1,293 km which is the equivalent of over 4 Bahrain GPs.

Magnussen preceded Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) in this special ranking and the surprise Daniel Ricciardo with Racing Bull, already perfectly in line with world champion Max Verstappen with the Red Bull RB20. And in fifth place we find Nico Hulkenberg with the second Haas, a sign that under the management of Ayao Komatsu the objective is not to seek exploits in qualifying as with the VF-23, but to collect points on Sunday at the end of the race. This is a very important change in strategy that can bear fruit in a season where the battle to enter the top 10 will be very tough.

Nico Hulkenberg, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Haas completed more laps than Ferrari and Red Bull

As we have already seen in the driver ranking, Haas dictates the team that has covered the most distance: in three days the team completed something like 7.7 GPs, i.e. a third of the 2024 season which is made up of 24 races with the addition of 6 Sprint appointments.

Ferrari follows with 7.2 GPs and Red Bull with 6.8, while they surprised Mercedes and McLaren who had more difficulty making their way with setup problems and some reliability problems. In particular, the MCL38 seemed rather young and had to replace the chassis due to a problem with fuel draft inside the tank.

Mercedes W15: the power unit assembled in Bahrain

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Engines: Mercedes does more km just because it has 4 teams

If we analyze the situation of the engine engineers we see that the manufacturer that has collected the most information is Mercedes with 1,365 laps completed equal to 7,387 km, but the Star can count on four teams on the track: in addition to the official team they also use the Brixworth power unit, also McLaren , Aston Martin and Williams, while Renault, very last, can only rely on the official team's Alpine.

And, then, to make the numbers we provide you more understandable, we can add that Mercedes is only third in the ranking of those who have done the furthest on average with an engine: the Star has covered 341 laps, surpassed by Ferrari with 412 and Honda with 372 laps, while Renault hasn't stopped for 333 laps. This last data is interesting because Bruno Famin, Alpine team principal, had set the goal for the staff at Viry Chatillon and Enstone to go a long way to better understand the A524. The fact that as motorists they are last says a lot…