Confidence about the Formula 1 campaign ahead simply oozed out of Max Verstappen as pre-season testing came to a conclusion in Bahrain on Saturday.
The Dutchman heads into the opening race of the season at the same track next weekend as an overwhelming favourite to win a third world title, and he was positively gushing about his team’s progress after three days at Sakhir.
“It has been very good,” Verstappen said. “The car is working really well. Just going through a lot of things we wanted to try. Just in general enjoying driving the car.
“We have had really positive test days and we learned a lot, and hopefully we start the weekend well and see where we end up. We are happy with what we are doing.”
Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, his closest rival last year, were sitting beside each other in the official news conference midway through Saturday’s final day of testing.
They were asked how they saw their prospects for 2023’s record 23-race season, and their answers were as revealing as they were stark in their contrast.
Leclerc echoed the thoughts of many within F1 heading into the first race of the season.
“I feel we have some work to do,” Leclerc said. “Red Bull seems to be very strong in these three days.
Verstappen was matter-of-fact. “Our goal is to win – and win the championship – only,” he said.
Red Bull head big three
Verstappen’s remarks were a reflection of what had seemed clear every time he went out on track in the new RB19 car.
An evolution of the design that took him to one of the most dominant titles in F1 history last year, the new Red Bull looked fast, stable and sorted from the time it emerged from the pits on the first day, without its driver ever appearing to try that hard.
Verstappen ended the test some way down the time sheets. But he spent the entire test using Pirelli’s C3 tyre – in the middle of the range. He did not even bother trying out any of the softer, faster, tyres.
And while individual testing lap times in isolation are notoriously unreliable guides of actual competitiveness, it seemed reflective of reality that Verstappen set a quicker time on that tyre than anyone else could, despite only running on the first two days of the test.
“We’re in a reasonable window with the car,” team principal Christian Horner said, employing what might politely be referred to as understatement for effect.
How did Horner judge their rivals?
“Very difficult to say,” he said. “Ferrari look like they’re quick. Mercedes’ form is difficult to read at the moment. Are they holding something back?
“Aston Martin have made a big step. Their concept of car has moved them forward and they look like they’re not too far away.”
Ferrari cautious but hopeful
Ferrari’s mantra for the test seemed to be “so far, so good”. It came out of the mouths of their drivers Leclerc and Carlos Sainz and their new team principal Frederic Vasseur virtually every time they spoke in public.
For a time, they stuck to the usual blather one hears from teams during testing – it’s too early and too difficult to judge competitiveness, when fuel loads, engine modes and so on are unknown and can make such a difference.
But on the final day the mask began to slip a little, presumably in the face of what looked to everyone like the obvious superiority of the Red Bull.
“We have had a good test doing all the test we wanted to do,” Sainz said. “Having a good test doesn’t mean having a good car, but we had a good test.”
Vasseur added: “When we are able to put everything together, the pace is there. And when we are not, the pace is not there.”
It is unwise to try to extrapolate too much from testing. Performances are indeed hard to read. Appearances can be deceptive. Teams that look quick pre-season don’t always do well when it comes to the first race, and vice versa. But there were some signs that, while Red Bull look to be favourites, Ferrari are not that far behind.
Leclerc, who was a stern rival for Verstappen last year until the wheels began to fall off Ferrari’s campaign, ended the test 0.7secs slower than the fastest time set by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez using the same C4 tyres.
But while Perez posted his time on the final evening, after the sun had gone down and when conditions were ideal for fast laps, Leclerc’s was done in the heat of the day, when they very much were not.
Meanwhile, Vasseur has wasted no time trying to address some of the shortcomings that forced Leclerc’s title challenge off the rails in 2022.
Leclerc lost potential wins in Monaco, Silverstone and Hungary last year to major strategic misjudgements, and it was former team boss Mattia Binotto’s apparent failure to recognise these as errors, or do anything about them, that was a major factor in him leaving his position over the winter.
Vasseur has been at Ferrari only for six weeks or so, but already he has reshuffled the race team, promoting Ravin Jain from a position as strategist to head of strategy, and moving the man who formerly held that job, Inaki Rueda, to a factory-based sporting role.
Leclerc, for one, has been impressed by the input of the man with whom he shares a close relationship after their success together in the junior categories.
“He arrived with very clear ideas and understands a team that’s very big,” Leclerc said of Vasseur. “Within a few days, he understood what had to be done and he did it. It’s positive.
“His job is to put people in the right positions, and he’s excellent at it.”
Ferrari have also been working hard on engine reliability. Failures cost Leclerc potential wins in Spain and Azerbaijan, after which the engines had to be run down-tuned, affecting competitiveness. Ferrari believe the problem is now behind them, which should allow them to run the engines more aggressively.
On both strategy and reliability fronts, though, it is the heat of competition that will prove whether Ferrari have truly made a step forward.
Have Mercedes improved?
For most of the test, Mercedes appeared to be struggling, and team boss Toto Wolff’s decision to use the word “eventually” at the launch of the car to describe the point at which they would be competitive this year seemed well advised.
But after what Lewis Hamilton described as a “difficult day” on Friday, things began to look up on the final day.
The seven-time champion was just 0.1secs slower than Sainz when running the C4 tyre at the same time of the early evening. And, on the C3 tyre, Hamilton was slower only than the two Red Bulls.
Mercedes, hoping for a better year after the disappointments of 2022, ended the test feeling they were about where they expected to be – not fastest, but in better shape than last year, and with a car they believe they can develop to compete at the front as the season progresses.
Crucially, the aerodynamic bouncing – also known as porpoising – that torpedoed their campaign last year seems to be a thing of the past.
“The bouncing has pretty much gone,” Hamilton said. “So that is a huge step for us. But there are still some underlying things we are working through.
“Some of the balance limitations we had last year are present. We are working through them. We’ll hopefully get there.
“We’re not quite where we want to be but it’s a good platform to start from.”
Could Aston Martin challenge Mercedes?
Right now, the top midfield teams look to be posing a bigger threat to Mercedes than Mercedes are to the top two. And Aston Martin, only seventh last season, made a major impression in Bahrain.
New signing Fernando Alonso looked quick whenever he was out on track, and the car – heavily revamped for this season by Aston Martin’s new design team, led by key hires from Red Bull and Mercedes – looked to have made a big step forward.
To many, it appeared as if Aston Martin may now head the midfield. Some even thought they might be able to challenge Mercedes.
Has Alonso, a man notorious for making poor career choices, finally made a good one? What a story it would be if the 41-year-old legend, in whom the hunger and fire burns as hard as ever, could be in the mix this year.
His former team Alpine, who were fourth last year and have set themselves the target of closing the gap to the big three, had a low-key test.
The car looked sprung like a skateboard and was apparently giving its drivers a very rough ride, and it never looked especially quick.
But Alpine did not try any lower-fuel runs, and technical director Matt Harman said the team have “have quite a nice upgrade coming for the first race”. The team are quietly confident they are there or thereabouts with Mercedes and Aston Martin at the head of the midfield.
McLaren struggling
Lando Norris’ McLaren team, meanwhile, had a difficult time. They admitted at their launch that they had missed their development targets, having spotted some aerodynamic avenues too late, and the message has not changed.
“The objective in terms of aerodynamic efficiency of the car, that’s the one where we are still shy of what was our target,” new team principal Andrea Stella said. “So, some of the (design) objectives have been met. Aerodynamic efficiency is still not where we would like it to be, or where where we would like it to be to be a top-four contender.
“Our objective through the season is to be a top-four car. At the moment I would say we are not necessarily in this range.”
Rivals think it’s even worse than that, and that McLaren could be fighting close to the back of the field at the start of the season. Developments are coming, but the first few races could be tough for Norris and new team-mate, the Australian Oscar Piastri.
Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda ended the test third and sixth quickest. But in reality those teams look in their usual place in the second half of the midfield, along with Haas, Williams and McLaren, the order very difficult to divine.
And Red Bull’s second team head into the season under a cloud of their own uncertainty.
A report by the respected German publication Auto Motor Und Sport said Red Bull, now under new management following the death last October of co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz, is questioning Alpha Tauri’s value and considering selling the team or moving it from Italy to England.
Three potential buyers have been named, including the American Andretti organisation.
Hamilton slates ‘dangerous’ tyre idea
Off track, the drivers have some concerns about a plan by F1 bosses to ban tyre-warming blankets in the near future.
In theory, the proposal to outlaw the devices that for decades have been used to heat tyres up to operating temperature before cars go out on track will come in next year on sustainability and cost-saving grounds, as long as teams vote in favour of the plan.
But Hamilton has driven the development ‘slick’ tyres Pirelli has been working on for this move, and he is far from impressed.
“It’s dangerous,” he said. “I’ve tested the no blankets, and there is going to be an incident at some stage. So, I think it is the wrong decision.
“You have to drive multiple laps to get the tyres to work. The whole argument is that taking away the blankets is going more sustainable and more green, but in actual fact we just burn more fuel to get the temperature into the tyres.
“Of more concern is when you go out: you are skating around and it is very twitchy. If someone else is on tyres that are working, you can easily collide with them. So, it is a pointless exercise.”
Other drivers are more sanguine. Sainz and Leclerc said they had driven the new ‘extreme’ wet tyres that were planned to be used without blankets and found them to be better than the much-criticised previous ones. Others said that as long as the equipment was up to the job, they were ambivalent about the idea of a ban. Unsaid was that that is quite a big caveat.
It’s one of those topics that sounds esoteric and niche, but which could have severe consequences if the plan is not well thought-out.
Talks and development are continuing, ahead of a vote by teams in the summer. The topic will doubtless rumble away for some time.