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Formula 1 pre-season testing, held at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) for the first time since 2014, wrapped up this week and the three-day event was a trailer for the season to come.
While Barcelona, despite its unpredictable rains, has become the de facto testing location every year, Bahrain this year offered drier testing conditions, distance from the heavily-Covid-struck Europe and, of course, free vaccinations.
This has sparked discussions about having testing in Bahrain on an ongoing basis, with Franz Tost, team principal of Scuderia AlphaTauri remarking, “Despite the windy conditions on day one, Bahrain has offered good track conditions for testing.”
He stopped short of a full endorsement saying that the verdict for next year’s testing would have to come after discussions between teams. However, AlphaTauri’s decision to get the whole team vaccinated in Bahrain is further proof of their faith in the country and the circuit as the “Home of Motorsport in the Middle East.”
One major consideration that teams may consider before picking Bahrain as a pre-season testing location is its distance from the UK.
When in Spain, teams like Mercedes would have up to two vans every day driving back and forth between Brackley, UK and Barcelona with newly-built and modified parts.
This, however, is a challenge in Bahrain and teams, reportedly, had to rely on a cargo plane to get updated parts from day to day.
In terms of racing, Red Bull emerged as the clear winner of the weekend, with its star driver Max Verstappen topping the lap time sheet on the first and the final day, setting the fastest time seen in Bahrain this year.
“Overall, this has been a positive test phase,” added Guillaume Rocquelin, Red Bull’s race engineering chief.
“Three days are never going to be enough; but in terms of the time available, what we got out of this test was very useful. We’ve got a really good base to build from and we’re looking forward to coming back to Bahrain in a couple of weeks.”
Seven-time world champions Mercedes seemed to struggle the most with a gear box issue on the first day, Lewis Hamilton getting beached in gravel on the second day and then spinning out because of a tailwind on the final day.
While other teams also had issues, Mercedes’ lack of speed ultimately proved to be the most concerning, as the team conceded after testing ended.
“We’ve made a bit of progress with the balance on higher fuel and the car was more predictable but we can see from the data we’ve collected over the last few days that on race pace, we’re not as quick as Red Bull,” Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said.
“The lower fuel work was a more confusing picture, we didn’t gain enough and we need to go and look at our approach as far too many cars were ahead of us on pace today.
“We’ve had issues in recent years with pace in winter testing and managed to make good progress before the first race, but we may have our work cut out this time.”
Despite the admission, rumours have swirled that Mercedes is repeating the sandbagging play it did in 2019 against Ferrari.
Sandbagging is when a team purposely underperforms so other teams can not accurately assess their performance or take a closer look at some of their improvements.
In 2019, Mercedes publicly conceded to Ferrari in the pre-season testing only to go on and win the first eight races of the season.
Regardless, the season promises to be an exciting one as midfield contenders McLaren, Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo have shown incredible pace and precise driving over the past weekend.
The countdown is now on for the season-opening Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, to be held from March 26 to 28. Covid-vaccinated and Covid-recovered individuals can purchase their tickets online at bahraingp.com or by visiting the new BIC stand at City Centre Bahrain.
