Bahrain is gearing up to host the second round of Formula 1 pre-season testing this weekend, and as motorsport fans wait with baited breath, let’s look back at the Barcelona tests to see what’s coming up.
Three days of pre-season running in Barcelona gave fans the first look at the new Formula 1 cars, as competitors eyed each other’s completely overhauled rigs.
There were seven red flags, one costly brush with the walls and a fair few wet laps added to the excitement, as the new 2022 cars took to the track in anger, at last.
The reigning world champions Mercedes, drove a total of 392 laps, clocking in a fastest lap of one minute 19.138s, courtesy of Lewis Hamilton.
It was a very solid weekend for the Silver Arrows. George Russell fitted into his new team seamlessly, managing laps with no noticeable reliability issues.
Add in Hamilton’s impressive 94 laps achieved on Friday afternoon, and it is clear the team is in a good place heading into the Bahrain test.
Their competitors, Red Bull, clocked 358 laps, with a fastest lap of 1m 19.556s by Sergio Perez.
Although they had a good first and last day of pre-season running, they did suffer a small hiccup on Day 2 when Perez was forced to pull over with a gearbox issue and lost valuable testing time.
Fortunately, he was able to make up for lost time on Friday afternoon, albeit in wet conditions. As for Max Verstappen, no signs of rustiness were evident for the reigning world champion, who hammered out 147 laps on the first day and seemed relatively happy with his 2022 contender.
Bahrain-owned McLaren put up 365 laps, with a fastest of 1m 19.568s by Lando Norris.
Two of the most relaxed drivers on the grid were dressed in papaya. And why not – Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris ran trouble-free, with a huge number of laps and some of the most eye-catching times to boot.
They even experimented with following other cars at times, with both drivers noting an improvement which bodes well for close, exciting racing.
Ferrari managed to clock in the most laps, putting up 439, with a fastest of 1m 19.689s by Charles Leclerc.
Managing the most laps of any team, with no reliability woes and looking quick to boot, Barcelona can rank as a very good outing for the Scuderia, raising hopes amongst their fans that this might be the year of their return.
Aston Martin put in 295 laps, with Sebastian Vettel clocking in the fastest lap of 1m 19.824s.
Despite a good start to the weekend, Vettel was forced to park trackside at the end of the morning session on Day 3, smoke pouring from the rear of his car. Once the car was taken to the pits, a small oil leak was detected, but couldn’t be fixed in time to get it out, leaving Lance Stroll short of laps. AlphaTauri gauged data from 308 laps, with a fastest lap by Pierre Gasly of 1m 19.918s.
Yuki Tsunoda seemed happy with the car, but his team mate made a mistake on Friday morning, as he locked up and crunched into the wall down at Turn 5.
The damage couldn’t be fixed across the afternoon and that meant no second outing for Tsunoda. But with plenty of laps across the first two days, all is not lost for AlphaTauri, who have been tipped as dark horses ahead of this season.
Williams drove for 347 laps, with former Red Bull driver Alex Albon clocking in the fastest lap of 1m 20.318s. Their first two days went off without a hitch with Nicholas Latifi and Albon both getting in very decent mileage.
Day 3 didn’t quite go according to plan. Alpine raced for 264 laps, with former world champion Fernando Alonso putting up the fastest of 1m 21.242s.
Alpine spent their first two days testing aero parts, running rakes and flow-vis for a number of laps. They managed a fair whack of mileage, which was just as well, as their Friday running was not ideal. Alonso was in the car, but pulled up on track after going top, with smoke billowing from the rear of his vehicle.
Haas raced for 160 laps, with Nikita Mazepin putting up a fastest of 1m 21.512s. Pre-season hasn’t been kind to the team.
To cap it all off, they are on the hunt for a new title sponsor and another driver, after their contract with Uralkali was torn up and Mazepin was fired due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Alfa Romeo put up 175 laps, with the fastest of 21.885s from Guanyu Zhou, making them the other team to struggle with reliability, underpreparing both rookie Zhou and veteran former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas.
