Carlos Sainz Jnr, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022

Red Bull and Ferrari on top? Mercedes ‘crying Wolff’? How each team fared in testing

2022 F1 season

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After two tests, six days of track running, over 6,000 laps and 31,000km, the pre-season testing for the 2022 F1 world championship season is complete.

While the familiar names of Red Bull and Max Verstappen ended the testing phase of the new season on top, it has been an intriguing prologue to the longest season in Formula 1 history with plenty of unanswered questions to lead into next weekend’s hotly-anticipated opening race.

Looking back at all 10 teams, who has the most to feel satisfied about ahead of the first race of F1’s new era?

Red Bull

Number one on the car, number one on the timing screens. If Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s goal for the pre-season was to demonstrate that they have a genuine chance of defending their championship title this year, they certainly went about it the right way over testing.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Red Bull revealed shrunken sidepods on final day of test
Verstappen’s headline-grabbing fastest lap on Saturday evening certainly made a strong impression, but beyond the timesheets, Red Bull’s consistent, relatively trouble-free running over the six days left them with a solid base with which to head to the opening race of the season at the same circuit next weekend.

Showing up on the final day with a major redesign for the sidepods of the RB18 and immediately going quickest with Sergio Perez was a clear statement of intent after their rivals Mercedes had drawn so much attention for their own sidepod revisions on Thursday morning. With the RB18 visibly one of the most well-balanced cars around the Bahrain circuit, the mood at Milton Keynes will be optimistic heading into round one.

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Mercedes

George Russell, Mercedes, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Mercedes’ car looks like nothing else on the grid
When Lewis Hamilton topped the times at the end of the first test in Spain it looked like business as usual for Toto Wolff’s team. But that was the only session the team headed across the six days, and Mercedes let it be known they were unsatisfied with the fruits of their testing programme. That was also the case 12 months ago, however, and they went on to win the first race of the year.

Despite covering more ground than any of their rivals, Mercedes struggled to dial out the handling concerns that had appeared in Barcelona by the end of the third day in Bahrain. The W13 also appeared to be porpoising the most severely of all 10 teams. Once again, Mercedes’ drivers ended the pre-season playing down their chances of being in the hunt for race wins at the opening race of the year.

“I think we probably optimised the performance a bit more in Barcelona than we did in Bahrain,” said George Russell. “But nevertheless we’re struggling to find how to unlock a bit more. So as it stands, Red Bull are looking incredibly strong, Ferrari are looking really solid and we have some work to do.”

But for Mercedes’ rivals, this is a song they’ve heard them play many times before. Could next weekend reveal them as the team who cried Wolff?

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Ferrari’s rivals took notice of their trouble-free running
It’s likely no team will be as happy with their pre-season performance as Ferrari. As well as being consistently near the top of the times with both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr throughout both tests, Ferrari virtually matched Mercedes’ benchmark mileage total.

But lap times were less of a concern for the Scuderia than reliability and for that they were very satisfied not to have suffered any significant issues across both Barcelona and Bahrain.

“It’s been a very solid winter testing for us, especially in terms of reliability,” said Sainz on Saturday.

“We’ve managed to cover the whole run programme without any issues, without causing any red flags or anything. So very solid by a team because it’s not easy with such new cars to be so solid. So we hope that we’re going to keep it that way come the first race.”

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McLaren

Lando Norris, McLaren, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Brake problems spoiled McLaren’s second test
It was a tale of two tests for McLaren during the pre-season. Barcelona began with such promise, with Lando Norris ending the first day of testing fastest overall and the team logging 367 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya over the first three days.

Then, the troubles struck in Bahrain. First, Daniel Ricciardo was sidelined unexpectedly with an illness, though the team initially expected he would be able to step back into the car before the end of the test. Norris completed two full days back-to-back before McLaren confirmed that Ricciardo had tested positive for Covid, meaning Norris would have to run a third day on his own.

That would have been more of a problem had the car been running reliably, which would have been a greater physical strain for Norris. But McLaren spent three days struggling with overheating front brakes, limiting the amount of running they were able to put into the MCL36. Although Norris looked like he had speed when he was able to push, there is work to do at McLaren at the start of the season.

“We’ve had a very challenging test here in Bahrain,” admitted team principal Andreas Seidl. “Our running has been compromised by an issue on the front axle. Time constraints did not allow us to entirely solve this during the test but we were able to move forward, despite a limitation in the number of laps we could complete.

“The objective is to fully solve this issue before next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, giving it our all here at the track and at the McLaren Technology Centre to catch-up on what we’ve lost over the past three days.”

Alpine

Esteban Ocon, Alpine, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Alpine switched to its special livery for the first two races in Bahrain
Alpine endured one of the more challenging starts to the pre-season in Barcelona. The team’s fastest time of the first three days, set by Fernando Alonso, was well down the order compared to where they would have preferred to be. Their third day was cut short when the A522 went up in smoke after only 12 laps in the morning, leaving them with work to do heading into Bahrain.

They got the second test off to another shaky start, with Alonso restricted to just 24 laps in the first morning session. However, fortunes improved for the team once Esteban Ocon took over the car in the afternoon and he was able to clock 153 laps over Thursday afternoon and Friday, setting the quickest time on Friday morning along the way.

Alonso ended the test on a strong note for Alpine, getting 122 laps under his belt on the final day while also setting the fourth fastest time of the test. The solid mileage over the final two days served to help make up for the time lost by the fiery end to the Barcelona test.

AlphaTauri

Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
Gasly bent the new AlphaTauri in Spain
The radical new technical regulations for 2022 had the potential to spread out the field this season, but after six days of testing AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost believes it will be harder for the team to score those impressive top six results they achieved so often last year.

“I see us in the midfield, but I think that the midfield is even closer together than it was last year,” explained Tost. “We have really to get everything together to repeat positions like last year when we finished fourth or fifth in qualifying.”

Despite Pierre Gasly crashing out of the final day in Barcelona and limiting team mate Yuki Tsunoda’s track time, Gasly managed to cover the first most laps of any driver over the six days. With the changeable wind and temperatures over the course of the day in Bahrain, the team have realised that the AT03 may be more sensitive to wind than some of its competitors.

“It depends how the wind is,” Tost said. “It depends whether there’ll be a headwind or a tailwind or side wind. This has a big impact to our car and I hope that we can get everything together because we have another week to prepare the car to find out the correct set-up and then we’ll see.”

Aston Martin

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, Silverstone, 2022
Aston Martin won the race to be first on track with their new car
Aston Martin enjoyed an undramatic yet unspectacular pre-season, neither setting the timing screens alight, but crucially not setting the AMR22 alight either.

The team ended the Bahrain test with the median number of laps covered by all ten teams with both Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll’s quickest laps seeing them in the lower half of the field. But after admitting that the team was not chasing ultimate lap time, Vettel expects the team could be in the thick of a packed midfield battle next weekend.

“It seems like there’s a big group with a lot of teams and we seem to be somewhere in there,” said Vettel. “Hopefully at the front – that could make a big difference.”

Williams

Nicholas Latifi, Williams, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
Friday’s brake fire cost Williams a lot of running
Having been the only team not to have tested the all-new 18-inch wheels introduced for the 2022 season due to not investing in a mule car last year, gaining mileage was of utmost importance for Williams ahead of the new season. They quietly did just that in Barcelona, with new arrival Alexander Albon alone clocking up 207 laps for his new team.

Bahrain began equally positively, with Albon putting in 104 laps on day one and setting the fifth fastest time along the way. Then, on Friday, a procedural error led to Nicholas Latifi’s brakes overheating and then catching alight, resulting in an alarming fire that engulfed the rear of the car and ending their day’s running very early.

Thankfully, the team enjoyed a trouble-free day on Saturday allowing Latifi to make up for lost track time. While it’s unsure how fast the FW44 is at this stage, team principal Jost Capito says his drivers are giving positive feedback about the new car, and the all-important correlation between simulation and reality is there.

“Alex is quite happy with how the car drives,” said Capito. “He says what he experienced in the simulator is very close to what he experienced on the track, which is quite good to see.”

Alfa Romeo

Robert Kubica, Alfa Romeo, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
Kubica only got a handful of laps in the camouflaged C42
No team had a more worrying start to testing than Alfa Romeo. Test driver Robert Kubica and new signing Valtteri Bottas managed just 32 laps in total. Bottas was the only race driver who failed to cover a grand prix distance by the end of the first test.

Thankfully, Bahrain was a far more productive endeavour for both Bottas and Alfa Romeo. Rookie Zhou Guanyu got almost 1,000km of running behind the wheel of the C42 over the three days – a useful volume of laps as he focused on learning all the various procedures and settings he would have to master ahead of his grand prix debut.

The Alfa Romeo also appeared to be suffering the least from the porpoising that afflicted the new ground effect cars over the two tests, while the two drivers combined for their highest lap tally on the final day before Bottas was forced to pull off the circuit in the final hour after his car developed an allergy to fourth gear.

Haas

Nikita Mazepin, Haas, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
Mazepin drove for Haas in Spain…
After years in the doldrums and in desperate need of a fresh start, Haas was supposed to get just that in 2022. Instead, the team had to endure perhaps the most tumultuous pre-season of their relatively short history, almost entirely through no fault of their own.

Beyond the more serious problems they faced in Barcelona arose from the geopolitical crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in them removing all branding of their title sponsor from the car, the team also managed the fewest laps of any team bar Alfa Romeo in Barcelona. Nikita Mazepin managed just nine laps on what may well turn out to be his final time behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car.

Then, after arriving in Bahrain with just one race driver and no title sponsor, Haas had to face even more difficulties when their cars and equipment arrived late to the circuit, forcing them to miss the morning session on Thursday.

Kevin Magnussen, Haas, Bahrain International Circuit, 2022
…Magnussen was in his place come Bahrain
Eventually, when the team did get going, Bahrain proved a more promising test than Barcelona had done. With the newly returned Kevin Magnussen at the wheel, Haas took advantage of a clear track in the evening offered to them as compensation for missing the first session and delivered the fastest time of Friday after their rivals had already begun packing up for the day.

Mick Schumacher used the extra two hours given to him on Saturday to set the second quickest time behind Verstappen. That made him the only driver to lap Bahrain quicker than he had throughout the entire race weekend the previous season. Despite some reliability issues to iron out, there is finally something for the team to feel positive about.

“It’s a matter of ‘are we quick or not’ and that’s what is positive – we are,” said Schumacher. “We have a good car, we have something we can work with so everyone can be really happy and proud of themselves that we’ve achieved that.”

Over to you

Which team impressed you the most in pre-season testing? Have your say in the comments.

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Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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40 comments on “Red Bull and Ferrari on top? Mercedes ‘crying Wolff’? How each team fared in testing”

  1. I do not believe any of them.
    F1 is as much about mind games as it is about the cars on race day so let’s all just wait and see shall we.

    I think we might be in for another interesting season ;)

    1. @nullapax Mind games for sure but then with these cars being so new such that they haven’t really been able to sandbag much imho, coupled with visible evidence such as porpoising, I think we have at least some of the picture. But of course yeah, we’ll only know when we know;)

      1. The porpoising can be made to look worse if a team is running the car too low. Mercedes were pushing to the extreme during Bahrain and it wasn’t so much about finding the sweet spot for performance. I would be really surprised if they don’t have the issue fixed come Qualifying.

        1. @lejimster82 “Mercedes were pushing to the extreme during Bahrain and it wasn’t so much about finding the sweet spot for performance.” I’d be surprised if that was the case since they are racing this weekend. I think they very much are/were trying to find the sweet spot, and I doubt they have left that for Friday’s practice sessions assuming they would then. Personally I’ll be really surprised if they have a fix come qualifying, but hey, you never know eh? We’ll soon see.

    2. Ferrari have been quickest for years in these tests and we all know how they subsequently did during the season, so I am only considering nr of laps (= data, = reliability) and whether drivers talk about the car having a nice balance or not. Time sheets mean very little.

  2. Believe Mercedes at your own peril.

    1. @proesterchen I believe them, but I also believe they will tackle their issues. But it is a matter of when, and by then the moving target that is RBR and Ferrari, just as two examples of teams that look more solid for now, will have advanced as well. Mercedes will improve, and it looks like they are going to have to at a greater rate than some others, and as soon as possible obviously.

      1. @Robbie: Yes, that’s the case I think. What I will add is that I’m not so sure they would have to do a lot of ‘catch-up’ (as in getting on par with RBR, Ferrari or whichever team is at the front) to do? When they manage to solve their porpoising problem, I think that car would be very fast. Already there are reports (I think I read it on twitter) that the Mercs were the fastest in slow-speed corners?!…and most of the pundits /analysts agree that given the nature of the way the cars generate downforce the faster they go, any team that can manage to also maintain good downforce in the slow-speed corners would gain metres and therefore better lap times overall.
        But you are right; the more their porpoising problem drags on and therefore holding back the optimal performance of the car, the more those at the front will pull away!

        1. Wietse op de Weegh
          14th March 2022, 14:40

          That might be true, but from what I understand the porpoising is the floor getting pressed down so much that the vacuum under the floor dissapears which makes the car shoot up again, causing the vacuum to reappear. It seems to me that the very reason they are fast in the slow corners is that their ground effect is too strong, causing the porpoising at higher speeds.

        2. DonSalsa I can’t help wondering if in order for Merc (any team with the same issue) to solve their porpoising they may have to, for example, raise their ride height and therefore suffer some performance (downforce) loss from that, just to keep the cars from bouncing. i.e. I’m not convinced just getting rid of porpoising makes for sudden magical overall performance gains, as getting rid of porpoising might require compromises. e.g. stiffer suspension settings. Will the Mercs still be fastest in slow speed corners (if a fair comparison can be made from testing) once they have tackled the porpoising?

          1. @Robbie: Yes, I agree that solving the porpoising problem may require some compromises with say suspension stiffness and/or ride height, which may result in some loss of downforce and therefore the optimal performance as seen in the wind tunnel wouldn’t translate to track performance. At the same time, it appears some teams have managed to reduce the porpoising drastically without seemingly losing performance, for example RBR, McLaren, Ferrari…and what is common to all these teams is that they’ve introduced new floors with important modifications to the edge of the floor. In comparison, the Mercs floor edge looks relatively ‘simple’…so I think the Mercs need a new floor that will allow them to run the car as low as possible without ‘choking’ the airflow underneath, as the other teams seem to be able to do. Anyway, we shall see what they come up with on Friday FP1/FP2.

  3. Using the smugometer index, it appears Red Bull and Ferrari are rating high, Mercedes and McLaren are medium, Alpine, Alpha Tauri and Haas are medium-low and Williams and Alfa Romeo are low.
    Only surprise is that Haas is doing slightly better than expected. There again, none of this matters and in a weeks time a whole new pecking order is likely to be established.

    1. @mrfrill I believe your analysis to be spot on. Merc will no doubt learn more and will probably even split their practice sessions with Lewis doing setup testing and George running aero tests until they can get the car dialled in (which I don’t expect until Australia at the earliest). McLaren is my biggest heartbreak of the test: both in Daniel losing valuable seat time to learn the new car and the brake issue. I expect a double DNF in the first race.

    2. @mrfill I don’t think the pecking order will be ‘established’ after one race, as changes to each teams’ cars may come quickly, I think particularly after these two back to back weekends coming up. But for sure yeah we will start to get an idea of how solid or shakey each team actually is when it counts on Sundays.

      1. It will all come down to their base aero design and the potential for development. Red Bull looks solid and quick already and you would expect them to develop quickly with a settled car. Ferrari look solid also but I fear they might tail off development wise, I hope I’m wrong. Mercedes look awful and have lots to do just to make the car stable, but their innovative design and unknown PU strength could shoot them to the front in a short period of time. I just have my fingers crossed for McLaren.

  4. Mick in the Haas setting the second fastest time kind of confirms everybody is still doing their own thing. Remember, even Verstappen’s time was with the tires he spun on.

    1. All it confirms is that the lap time was flattered by the cooler running conditions, as has been noted several times here.

      1. Mick did a 33.1 on C3 tyre in the afternoon too.

    2. No it was not, he set a faster time later on.

      1. As ever, the slowest times showcase the true pace.

        -RedBull are looking quick, car ran well, stable. Race runs started on the 37.

        -Mercedes could not sandbag slower than 38s on the race run. Pu turned down and Russell often lifted on the straights. Deg on the tyres was lower than ferrari. Car turns in like a merc. On the negative side the car rides badly over 260 kph.

        -Ferrari, reliable and ready for racing as usual ferrari arrives ready for testing. Car looked average, lapped average.

        -McLaren looked quick, quicker than ferrari. Rides just as well as the redbull but seems like the team made a blunder on front brake design.

        -Alpine is in trouble. Alpine is behind in development. Reliability is another worry. Hard to read Alpine on the final day of testing as they clearly ran a shallow rear wing. I don’t know if they were readying themselves for Saudi Arabia or they opted to solve the purposing Ocon experienced yesterday by running a lot less rear wing than anyone else.

        -AlphaTauri don’t look that great, both drivers look to be able to push the car but it understeers, probably not a bad thing on a rear limited track.

        -Aston Martin look solid. Average everywhere, certainly closer to the top of the midfield than last year.

        -Williams looked really good. Car rides well, certainly in the midfield mix.

        -Alfa Sauber, hard to read. Balance looks perfect but perhaps lacking downforce. The car looks to be running high off the floor. Reliability is a big worry.

        -Haas, looks like a white ferrari. Unlike previous haas it does not look like it is built out of cardboard. Looks like a midfield car. Balance is nice, ride is really good, runs a bit high off the race track, similar to the Alfa, less pointy, much more reliable.

  5. Horner accepting the legality of the Mercedes is all the proof I need to believe they’re are actually having issues!

    1. This! Horner cries over everything and can see much more data than we can. He know they are quick and Mercedes are genuinely struggling. Probably thinks it’s worth them wasting more time figuring out their package before complaining. I expect Mercedes to come good at some point, but with the cap it could even be next year.

  6. Ferrari have to establish their selves at Mercedes and RBR levels as a team before being considered a championship contender. By Elkann’s own admission in 2020 after the disastrous start of the season, they were having a lot of issues with regard to the tools and structures used to build and develop their cars over the season. They have had a structural issue that persisted in all their cars over a decade.

    It’s worth to mention that a lot of effort has been made since to correct the correlation issues between the track and the simulation. RBR were hit with a similar problem in 2020 and managed to align its correlation before the start of the 2021 season. Ferrari suffered a similar problem in 2018 after the Italian GP when they brought an upgrade package that slowed them down instead, after 3 races they reverted to the old spec package (floor, wings) and suddenly they regained competitiveness.

    A new state of the art simulator, developed by the Bristol-based firm Dynisma run by former Ferrari engineer Ash Warne which they started using at the end of the season for calibration purposes to be ready to develop the 2022 car. They will also rely on AWS’s powerful capabilities that will enable them to run greater simulations faster than ever before to quickly gain insights into the design and performance of their car.

    I think Ferrari are probably happy that they have completed their testing program with no reliability issues and no discrepancy between the simulation and the track but that doesn’t mean that they have the outright fastest car. This constitutes a solid baseline to build on if they are seriously thinking about challenging RBR and Mercedes because the development race will be crucial. With the development restrictions in place, they cannot afford to bring upgrades that simply cannot deliver.

    Mercedes and RBR are very sharp from that regard. Whenever they bring upgrades on track, they deliver. Ferrari also have to sort out the track operations (strategy, pit stops, reactivity to unpredictable issues…) which unfortunately judging by last year they are still light years behind RBR and Mercedes. In a nutshell, a fruitful testing program that confirms the improvements shown last year but Mercedes and RBR are the favourites.

    1. Agree with Tifoso 89; Ferrari have to up its game in every way otherwise even if they start the season with the fastest car it at most take 3 races for the other two teams to catch and pass them.

      1. even if ferrari has the fastest car, they will lose their advantage with their dubious strategies and pit stops.

        As for mercedes, for many years, with last year , and even better last race being the pinnacle, mercedes showed that they suck at strategies when they they are out of their comfort zone, which is for them, leading by 25s in order to get a free pitstop lol….

  7. petebaldwin (@)
    13th March 2022, 14:38

    Talk in F1 is extremely cheap. People lie all of the time so I have no faith in anything other than pace in competitive sessions.

    We haven’t seen the true pace of any of the teams yet, we don’t know how they are on cooling and we don’t know how they are with tyre wear. Mercedes will miraculously fix their “issues” this week so that’s a non-story. I just hope it’s close between at least 2 teams at the front.

    1. Absolutely, they always fix their issues in 1 race, even last year they were immediately competitive.

  8. Overall, Ferrari has impressed me the most, but only next weekend will give definitive answers on competitive order.

  9. Personally, I find the level of self-delusion among fans, and even the media, about the state of the W13, to be fantastically amusing.

    The evidence is right there, for all the world to see. It’s been there every year in testing– when the car’s performance doesn’t match what the team’s saying, then there might be a case for “sandbagging”.

    When the car is obviously a pig to drive, and has issues that a 10 year old could spot, and time is at a premium– believing Mercedes doesn’t have an issue is a level of self-delusion worthy of a flat-earther.

    1. Well, the “problem” is Mercedes always had difficulties and scored a pole the next race.
      So nobody in his right mind believes anything Mercedes cries.
      But this year it seems they messed up completely. A spec A and spec B car shows signs of panic. They will solve their problems but it will take time. And a lot of money. The last item is a new problem for Mercedes. They can no longer buy design solutions as a result of the cost cap. Or sacrifice the development in the rest of the season. So either way, they are screwed for now.

  10. I’ve got inside information and can tell you all the answer:

    NOBODY KNOWS WHICH TEAM IS FASTEST!

    1. @sonnycrocket Maybe nobody in this comments section, but there are probably thousands of people within F1 who know.

  11. It’s hard to rule anyone out, but I think Williams may struggle to keep up with the midfield. As for the front runners, we can all expect both Red Bull and Mercedes to be in the mix but I truly hope Ferrari and McLaren can join them.

  12. Regarding the fight between RB and Ferrari, I’m not so sure the bulls are ahead at this moment, even with their upgrade package.
    Yesterday I stumbled upon a telemetry chart comparing Verstappen’s, Russell’s and Leclerc’s fastest laps. The interesting fact was that Leclerc often shifted earlier than Verstappen, using higher gears through the slow corners (3rd gear) T1, 8, 10, but at the same time was able to get earlier on the power than both Verstappen and Russell on almost every corner (especially T13). Apart from that, Leclerc was able to brake later than the other two at almost every corner (except T11, where Russell was the latest), was the only one going full throttle through the fast T5 (but was still slower at the apex) and activated DRS at the end of the lap later than the other two (he was also 6 kph down on Verstappen at the end of the main straight).

    This suggests that Ferrari have more in reserve in terms of engine performance than RB have and also their chassis/aero being very good.

    1. @srga91 However, that assumes similar fuel loads, engine modes, times of day etc etc. You’re (the telemetry you’ve found) is focused on one fast lap of three cars, in testing. Very soon (Saturday can’t come soon enough) we’ll see the cars in an apples to apples setting and then we’ll really start to see where they are amongst each other.

      1. @robbie
        Yes, I am aware of the uncertainties involved in these kind of datasets. However, what makes me less optimistic for RB is the fact that their car seems to be above the weight limit by a considerable amount, according to a report from AMuS by as much as 20 kg. The same article also mentions Ferrari running a more conservative fuel load.
        Source: https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/f1-analyse-testfahrten-bahrain-2022/

        I followed every day of testing this season and the Ferrari looked very good on long runs as well, particularly on the final day in Bahrain. When Leclerc did his long run on the C3 in the final hour of the last day, I assume simulating the first race stint (C3=Soft at the GP weekend), he did very fast and fairly consistent laps in the low to mid 1:38s. Verstappen did his long runs a little earlier, about 30 minutes I think, on the C2 (probably 2nd stint) and was lapping at a slightly better pace in the high 1:37s. Considering the (likely) lighter fuel load of the RB at that time, I’d give Ferrari a slight advantage.

        But as you said, this weekend we’ll see the true picture. I can’t wait!

        1. @srga91 So hard to say. Marko did speak of the weight thing, but I’m sure that is something they have been addressing and may already be old news. I just wish it was already Saturday lol.

  13. I dont doubt Mercedes when they or their drivers say they have problems. They are not saying they have a slow package only that they have to draw out the performance. And from testing obviously they are not the fastest. They just stating the obvious and the truth (performance) as they perceive it to be.

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