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Graham Read
Formula 1 Correspondent
9:55 PM 12th March 2022
sports

Max Verstappen Fastest For Red Bull As Bahrain Test Ends

 
With the opening Grand Prix of the 2022 campaign in Bahrain just over a week away, the second and final three day pre-season test has taken place at the same venue and it was Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen who emerged at the top of the timesheets with the fastest lap of the whole test. In contrast, Mercedes’ new driver George Russell was an impressive fourth quickest today, but Sir Lewis Hamilton was only 17th fastest in their new car which looked a real handful to control.

Max Verstappen led the way in Bahrain
Max Verstappen led the way in Bahrain
Mercedes had turned up in Bahrain with dramatically revised sidepods and mountings for its mirrors compared to those previously revealed at the recent Barcelona test and even Formula 1’s managing director Ross Brawn expressed his surprise, saying that such an “extreme” interpretation of the new regulations had never been envisaged when the rules were formed. F1 wouldn’t be F1 though without a good old technical row brewing in the background about the legality or otherwise of the teams’ new designs and soon there were rumblings of discontent and questions raised about the radical Mercedes W13, even though there seemed ultimately to be a general acceptance that it was within the regulations.

During the recent Barcelona test the teams had experienced a phenomenon which became known as porpoising. At high speed the new front wings, introduced as part of the revised technical regulations for this season and beyond, dropped in height before the air flow stalled and the nose of the car sprung back upwards before the process was repeated. The drivers were understandably unimpressed with the reduced stability of the cars and the teams were still working on solutions in Bahrain.

Kevin Magnussen (right) is making an unexpected return to F1 as team-mate to Haas’ Mick Schumacher
Kevin Magnussen (right) is making an unexpected return to F1 as team-mate to Haas’ Mick Schumacher
The opening day’s times were not of great significance as all the teams ran through their pre-planned programmes of data gathering, but for the record AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly set the fastest time (a 1m33.902s) whilst racking up a healthy 103 laps, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc the best of the rest for Ferrari. Yesterday it was Sainz who had gone quickest by the end of normal running with a 1m33.532s lap ahead of Verstappen and the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll. This left Hamilton to admit that he and team-mate Russell were struggling to tame their eye-catching, but oversteering and porpoising new car in the hot and windy conditions, adding that he didn’t expect them to fight for victories until some of the car’s problems were resolved.
Williams had a problem yesterday, with red flags flying after a brake issue caused a fire which melted the car’s rear suspension.

However, step in the American owned Haas team which was allowed an extra hour of testing yesterday evening after air freight delays had caused it to miss the opening morning of running on Thursday and oh, how it used the 60 minutes of cooler conditions to great effect. Its new driver Kevin Magnussen, who hadn’t driven an F1 car for over a year, set a new fastest lap of 1m33.207s for the team which had ended up pointless and last in the 2021 Constructors’ Championship. The driver and his colleagues enjoyed their moment of glory at the top of the timesheets, but knew though that it was of little overall significance.

Haas has been under the international spotlight since announcing a week ago that it had terminated its contracts with driver Nikita Mazepin and title sponsor Uralkali, both from Russia. On the same day the Banbury based squad had made a surprise announcement that its former driver Magnussen would be returning in place of Mazepin on a multi-year contract. The 29 year old Dane, a veteran of 119 F1 starts, had raced for the team between 2017 and 2020 and had spent last year competing in the USA and at Le Mans. It was clear from his whole body language after arriving in Bahrain that he was simply thrilled to be back, adding “I’d forgotten how much I missed F1 until I received the Haas offer.”

The Imola circuit will remain on the F1 calendar until at least 2025
The Imola circuit will remain on the F1 calendar until at least 2025
Williams had a problem yesterday, with red flags flying after a brake issue caused a fire which melted the car’s rear suspension. Nicholas Latifi had completed just 12 laps at the time and the team took no further part as repairs were worked on. McLaren had its own issues too, with overheating front brakes limiting Lando Norris’ time in the car and resulting in a need for revised brake ducts to be manufactured back at its UK factory in a race against time to get them ready and flown out to Bahrain before today’s final day of testing. To add to their woes, Daniel Ricciardo had been unwell and unavailable to drive on the first two days, at the end of which it was confirmed that the likeable Australian had tested positive for Covid-19 and thus driving duties would be the sole responsibility of Norris.

Today represented the final pre-season ontrack testing opportunity before the first race on this year’s calendar and all teams were determined to make good use of it, with Haas again allowed some extra running and Williams too after yesterday’s fire damage. Red Bull’s RB18 emerged with revised sidepods, whilst Alpine introduced an upgraded front wing, and both changes subsequently appeared to have been beneficial. In the closing stages of the test teams shifted their attention to performance runs and it was Verstappen who set the benchmark best lap of 1m31.720s, with Leclerc, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Russell the best of the rest. Subsequently though Haas used their permitted extra couple of hours of testing to enable Mick Schumacher to record a 1m32.241s lap, bettered only by Verstappen today.
The new cars will head out on track for the opening free practice session in Bahrain next Friday as the build-up to Sunday’s race begins and only then will we truly find out who’s been sandbagging...

Elsewhere on the news front, Alpine’s reserve driver and reigning Formula 2 champion, the highly talented 20 year old Australian Oscar Piastri, has joined the pool of reserve pedallers available to McLaren, which may prove significant with Ricciardo currently isolating with Covid. Also, the American IndyCar racer Colton Herta is due to get a first taste of F1 machinery later this year when McLaren put him in one of their 2021 MCL35M cars.

Bernd Mayländer with the revised Mercedes Safety Car (right) and Medical Car
Bernd Mayländer with the revised Mercedes Safety Car (right) and Medical Car
In other news, it was revealed last Monday that Formula 1 would continue to race at the classic old school Imola circuit in northern Italy until at least 2025, having returned there in 2020 due to the ramifications of the pandemic elsewhere around the world. F1 had previously last visited back in 2006 and of course the venue was sadly the location of Ayrton Senna’s death on 1 May 1994.

Mercedes has also announced that it will be supplying revised Safety and Medical Cars this season as it continues to share these duties with Aston Martin. Last year’s Mercedes-AMG GT R Safety Car has been replaced by a GT Black Series one and a GT 63 S 4MATIC+ Medical Car will take over from its C63 S Estate predecessor. The red livery introduced last year has been retained, together with ongoing Crowdstrike sponsorship, whilst Aston Martin will still use its Vantage and DBX SUV models as the Safety and Medical Cars respectively. The German former racing driver Bernd Mayländer will continue behind the wheel of the Safety Car, having held the role since 2000.

With pre-season testing now completed, attention will very much turn to final preparations for the first event of the longest F1 season ever, with 23 Grands Prix on the calendar between now and November. The new cars will head out on track for the opening free practice session in Bahrain next Friday as the build-up to Sunday’s race begins and only then will we truly find out who’s been sandbagging, who’s really quick and who isn’t. Bring it on.