By Carlo Platella
Finally the track speaks again, the only true judge of the work carried out by the teams in view of the new season. The Bahrain track has now supplanted the Barcelona racetrack as the venue for pre-season testing, a convincing substitute in any case, highlighting different aspects of performance. What remains unchanged, however, is the historic difficulty in interpreting the rankings at the end of the test, always subject to a thousand variables, but not inscrutable.
The sectors
A recurring warning on the eve of the tests is the high variability of the times. In addition to the fuel on board, tyres, set-up and engine maps, performance is influenced by the conditions of the asphalt, which is why the time in which a lap is carried out must also be taken into account, with the evening which offers the most favorable temperatures. If there were the conditions to compare the readings of two cars, the results in the individual sectors are just as indicative of the qualities of the single-seaters as the overall time.
The first sector in Bahrain it consists of two straights in succession, followed by the same number of low-speed hairpin bends. The first split time therefore highlights the speed in acceleration, incisiveness in braking, agility at low speeds and rear traction. These are performance aspects that coincide with the weak points of the McLaren 2023, which will therefore be particularly observed in this area in the next tests. The final sector, however, it has two extensions connected by two medium-low speed curves, with a minimum speed of between 150 and 130 km/h. In addition to McLaren, attention falls on Mercedes and Aston Martin, often in trouble on the straights last season.
Finally, the central part is the most varied and complete of the Bahraini circuit and for this reason the most indicative of rewarding qualities over the course of an entire championship. We begin with the triptych of curves 5-6-7 at medium-high speed, with a minimum speed of around 210 km/h, a section that places the emphasis on the precision of the front and reactivity in changes of direction. We then continue with hairpin bends 8 and 10, to be tackled between 70 and 80 km/h at the apex point, an excellent test for mechanical grip and traction. Finally, the two corners 11 and 12 stand out, where the load and aerodynamic stability reign supreme.
Race pace
Ground-effect regulations and low-shoulder Pirellis, designed to reduce their tendency to overheat, have outlined a Formula 1 that from 2022 places greater emphasis on racing than qualifying. Dynamics, the latter perfectly internalized by Red Bull, which by its designers' own recognition was designed to best express itself over long distances. Even more than the qualifying simulations, during the testing phase the curiosity falls above all on the average times run with full load of fuel.
Bahrain's asphalt is one of the most abrasive on the entire calendar, a characteristic which accelerates surface wear. Repeated restarts from hairpin bends at low speed instead stress the rear axle, emphasizing its degradation, recognizable by a rapid drop in pace in race simulation. Conversely, a high repetitiveness of times would be an indication of excellent tire management, a finding which even in this case however would not constitute a guarantee of the competitiveness of a project.
The management of degradation, in fact, is the result of a work of compromise at a rapid pace. Pushing harder to keep up with those in front stresses the tire, while to slow down its degradation it is necessary to soften the ride and literally lift the foot, especially in faster corners. Keeping degradation under control is therefore of little use if you are forced to sacrifice performance excessively to achieve this. The emblem is the 2023 Ferrariwhich in Bahrain did not show a clear drop in its race times, but had to lap 7 tenths slower than Verstappen's Red Bull.
Work programs
Finally, important indications can emerge by looking at the programs set for track work. The first hours of testing are generally dedicated to ascertaining the aerodynamic correlation between the real world and the wind tunnel, using the large rakes and making passes at constant speed in a straight line. However, if this type of test were to be prolonged, it would become a potential wake-up call due to correlation problems.
Finally, there is a difference in approach between the teams in the use of tyres. Some teams prefer to gather information with all five compounds available, while others work for most of the time on the intermediate compound, maintained as a fixed parameter on which to evaluate the effect of the other corrections to be tested in the car. In this regard, suffice it to say that McLaren and Alpine will give up using the two softest compounds in the range in Bahrain, namely C4 and C5. The picture that emerges is that of a scenario dominated by variables and unknowns, where the comments and faces of the protagonists often tell more than the numbers are able to.
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