“It’s more exciting”: Drivers welcome closer fight as 1.2s covers teams in qualifying

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by and

Formula 1 drivers were pleased to see the gap between all 10 teams shrink in the first qualifying session for the new season.

Just 1.18 seconds covered the 20 cars over a 90-second lap of the Bahrain International Circuit in the first stage of qualifying yesterday. The same gap was 2.3 seconds last year, though it was inflated by Nicholas Latifi lapping six-tenths of a second slower than any other driver.

Nonetheless, drivers from F1’s top three teams were pleased to see the rest of the field close up in qualifying. Sergio Perez said it means even drivers from the front-running teams have to be on top of their game to avoid dropping out in Q1 or Q2.

“Certainly the competition is a lot closer now,” said the Red Bull driver. “You can see it straight from Q1 you cannot do a mistake even if you are in a top car.

“So that’s nice in a way and it will only get closer as the season progresses. So we welcome the competition.”

However Charles Leclerc isn’t convinced the close range of times seen in qualifying will necessarily lead to a closer race. “I will probably wait and see also the race pace,” said the Ferrari driver.

“But in quali for sure it seems that we are all closer, which I think is great. It’s more exciting.

“In qualifying sessions like Q1 and Q2, for the top teams, whenever we had that big margin, we could do a little bit whatever we want. It now seems to be a bit more on the limit. So it’s nice.”

Max Verstappen believes the field has converged in performance because teams have increasingly followed each others’ designs.

“It’s not really a surprise,” he said. “If you look at most of the cars, they all copy each other. Everyone is getting smarter over the years, anyway, with the same regulations. If you see that one car particularly is doing quite well over a year you’ll try to copy some things.

“That’s why I think, of course, naturally everyone is getting closer and in general, of course understanding the car a bit better.”

Bringing the F1 news from the source

RaceFans strives to bring its readers news directly from the key players in Formula 1. We are able to do this thanks in part to the generous backing of our RaceFans Supporters.

By contributing £1 per month or £12 per year (or the equivalent in other currencies) you can help cover the costs involved in producing original journalism: Travelling, writing, creating, hosting, contacting and developing.

We have been proudly supported by our readers for over 10 years. If you enjoy our independent coverage, please consider becoming a RaceFans Supporter today. As a bonus, all our Supporters can also browse the site ad-free. Sign up or find out more via the links below:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

Browse all 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

5 comments on ““It’s more exciting”: Drivers welcome closer fight as 1.2s covers teams in qualifying”

  1. I would say this is not a correct analysis. If we compare to last year and control for a couple of things the field spread is almost exactly the same. We have a couple of confounding factors that bunched this year up.

    1. Latifi in 2022 was particularly off the pace. He was .6 off P19. Remove him from the equation and the field spread from last year was around 1.6 in Q1.
    2. This year RedBull had big performance jump from Q1/Q2 to Q3 (1.6 seconds). i.e they kept their powder dry in Q1 way more than Ferrai did last year (.9 jump). That’s to say this year Q1 was artificially close, well more so than last year.

    If we compare slowest Q1 time to fastest Q3 time between 2022 and 2033 and remove Latiofi from the equation in 2022 we come to 2.4 seconds field spread for both this year and last year. I think this gives a more accurate reflection of relative performance throughout the grid, and it’s pretty much the same as last year with the exception of Aston Martin jumping up the order. That really represents that effect of the movement of staff from RBR to Aston.

    1. Indeed. While it is great to see the whole field so close, Red Bull especially had plenty in hand. Then again, the track evolution was (apparently) pretty significant, so it is hard to judge exactly what the gap between the front and the back is. I suppose the race will tell us more.

      1. Evolution wasn’t much different to 2022. The main difference was RBR keeping their powder dry.

  2. As developments are freezing more and more + very less gap in quali times means a team having experienced drivers has advantages. This ia where AM is good along with top 3. Others mostly focusing on new talent but might be risky

  3. I said after qualifying that I think the fact they spent 3 days testing at Bahrain last week will probably help the field be closer in laptime as setups are probably a lot more refined than they would be at other race weekends.

    I also think Bahrain is a bit of a unique circuit anyway due to how abrasive the surface is which makes it a more tyre limited circuit than most others and so they tend to gear setups towards been kinder on tyres to a larger extent than they have to at other circuits. There’s also not really many faster, flowing corners (Really just 5/6/7 & 12) and it’s more about been able to stop the car for the slower/tight ones & having good acceleration off them onto the long straights which is more difficult due to a few of them been off-camber.

Comments are closed.