Bahrain 2023 Testing February 23 - 25

We went from silly bargeboards to silly floors now.

If I was in charge of the rules I'd further clean up the cars by making the floors clean (along with lower weight etc).

 

Currently I think the best looking car is the car with the most paint, which is Ferrari.

 

Ferrari sitll with bouncing and now they're taking the floor off the be repaired apparently...

 

What is the purpose of the aero fence? Does it have sensors?

 

Yes, they use them to guage real world aero results to the aero software.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.smedley-what-are-aero-rakes.1F74d3YVUBzRRiZz9D3nZ4.html

 

Sounds like a perfect disaster...experiencing stuff that should have been sorted out two months ago.

 

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He doesn't look happy...

 

The story seems to unfold as predicted. Merc face planted last year in a spectacular way and asked the FIA to make a specific adjustment to the regs to suit their car specifically and the FIA did and now guess what, the female canine from the wizard of oz is now bragging that there is no porpoising on the merc.

 

Thats the Im going to look for a new team soon face............unless I win a title this year.

 

Day one times

1. Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m32.837s, C3, 156 laps
2. Alonso (Aston Martin) 1m32.866s, C3, 59 laps
3. Sainz (Ferrari) 1m33.253s, C3, 72 laps
4. Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m33.267s, C3, 58 laps
5. Norris (McLaren) 1m33.462s, C3, 40 laps
6. Hamilton (Mercedes) 1m33.508s, C3, 78 laps
7. Albon (Williams) 1m33.671s, C5, 74 laps
8. Zhou (Alfa Romeo) 1m33.723s, C3, 67 laps
9. Russell (Mercedes) 1m34.174s, C3, 69 laps
10. Sargeant (Williams) 1m34.324s, C3, 75 laps
11. Hulkenberg (Haas) 1m34.424s, C3, 51 laps
12. Bottas (Alfa Romeo) 1m34.558s, C3, 71 laps
13. De Vries (AlphaTauri) 1m34.559s, C3, 81 laps
14. Drugovich (Aston Martin) 1m34.564s, C3, 40 laps
15. Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) 1m34.671s, 46 laps
16. Gasly (Alpine) 1m34.822s, C3, 60 laps
17. Ocon (Alpine) 1m34.871s, C3, 50 laps
18. Piastri (McLaren) 1m34.888s, C3, 52 laps
19. Magnussen (Haas) 1m35.087s, C3, 52 laps

Max having done an insane amount of laps. Just a few short of 3 GP distances in a single day.

 

Yup...important to note that Max's lap was way earlier when track was greener, temps hotter (worse performance), on a pretty long run AND it was a messy lap going off on plenty of spots.

 

Game set match to RedBull today. Its only testing but thats a sorted car. 157 laps and not sweating that at all lol.

I wont speculate on others.

 

Red Bull look very solid.
Ferrari quick but floor issues...I'm not happy with Charles not looking very happy. Hope it doesn't spell disaster.
Merc look half decent but I'd be surprised if they're up there actually fighting for pole/wins.
Aston Martin looks 4th fastest quite easily, mostly because:
Mclaren and Alpine looking absolutely horrendous. Either would be lucky to enter Q3 and I wouldn't be surprised to see one of their drivers not make it out of Q1 at this point!

 

Needless panic. Other teams asked for changes in previous seasons. I posted plenty of examples last season(like the beeching by RedBull about party modes etc). NO team is in line for Saint-Hood ever. Its F1. Its not fair by design and not in execution.

 

Only day 1, but yeah, Max, ALO, 2 Ferraris on top
Logan Sargent fastest of the rookies, in a Williams!
Not to beat a dead horse, but all we know with Stroll is he has a hand/wrist injury?

 

The Aston is really Merc's plan B car

 

He crashed his xbox and forgot to let go of the wheel

 

Much can change and soon. New parts daily is normal. Race trim spec is being configured.

 

That's a good example of Red Bull complaining about party mode. It may not have made any difference, but they complained, and the rules were changed.

 

Merc have been the sainthood until last year. We’ll see about this year.

 

https://www.automobilsport.com/scuderia-ferrari-f1-bahrain-test-day1-laps-debut---247851.html


Sainz:
“Overall a positive first day. Reliability was good and we could run smoothly, covering the whole run plan and gathering valuable data, which is encouraging.


We progressed well with the setup during the day and we also managed to get good reads on the tyres we tested in Abu Dhabi so, overall good progress made so far and I’m looking forward to continuing tomorrow“.


Leclerc:
“We have a busy first day of testing behind us. We completed 64 laps on my side, testing a bit of everything. Our focus was on set-up work, combined with some tyre and aero testing, as well as runs with different fuel levels. We’re going to analyse our data now and I look forward to another session tomorrow“.

 

Alonso to test for Aston Martin alone as F1 team awaits Stroll update
Fernando Alonso is set to have the Aston Martin AMR23 Formula 1 car to himself as testing continues in Bahrain on Friday, amid Lance Stroll's continued absence due to injury.