Red Bull lay down marker – can they be stopped in 2024?

The 2024 Formula 1 season looks poised to start the way the last one finished – with Max Verstappen and Red Bull out of reach at the front of the field.

That seems to have been the lesson from three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain this week.

Verstappen and his spectacular new RB20 car looked every bit as imperious as the Dutchman did in its record-breaking predecessor last year.

Of course, it is, as the old F1 adage goes, only testing.

The times don’t mean anything because it’s too difficult to make judgements as result of the number of variables involved – fuel loads, track condition, tyres and so on.

Well, yes, up to a point. As ever, the headline lists of lap times threw up some obvious inconsistencies and impossibilities.

Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber, for example, ended the final day of the test with the third fastest time. If the Chinese qualifies there in Bahrain next Friday for Saturday’s season-opening race, he would be as surprised as anyone else.

But just as this time last year, there was little doubt about the superiority of Verstappen and Red Bull. Even the list of times on the final day more or less gave that away, if you looked just below the surface.

Charles Leclerc was fastest in his Ferrari, closely followed by George Russell’s Mercedes, with Verstappen fourth.

But Leclerc, Russell – and Zhou, for that matter – all used the softer C4 tyres to beat Verstappen’s time, while he was on the slower, harder C3s.

The margin by which Leclerc beat Verstappen was smaller than the performance offset between the two types of tyre. And comparing times set on the C3s, Verstappen was fastest – and you can bet your house on the fact that he was not running a qualifying-style light fuel load.

Not only that, but none of Verstappen’s rivals were bothering to engage in the usual testing cliches, about how it’s impossible to judge where everyone is.

Leclerc said: “Red Bull remain in front. They have a very, very good car again this year. How far in front they are remains to be confirmed, but they seem to be in front for now, yes.”

Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton said: “The car felt much more enjoyable to drive [than last year]. We still have time to find. Red Bull clearly are out in the distance but it’s a good platform to work from this year.”

And Lando Norris, whose McLaren team were the most improved last season after leaping from midfield to the front with a mid-season upgrade, said: “We are in a good position. We had a decent car at the end of last season and we have definitely taken some steps in the right direction, but still a very long way behind Red Bull and a long way behind Ferrari.”

What have the drivers seen that the headline lap times don’t portray? The consistently effortless way in which Verstappen was fast whenever he went out on track, for a start. The car looks more stable, more predictable and quicker than anything else. Just like last year.

And the above quotes were given even before the final afternoon, when Verstappen and Red Bull seemed to remove all doubt.

He went out for what rivals believed was a simulated first stint of a grand prix at the same time as a bunch of other cars doing the same thing, including Leclerc’s Ferrari, Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.

Race simulations are the best way of judging true pace because they are the only time it is possible to know pretty much what fuel load the cars have on board.

When Leclerc started his run, he was actually slightly quicker than Verstappen, but not for long. And by the end of their first stints, the Red Bull was on average about 0.4-0.5secs per lap quicker as tyre degradation affected the Ferrari much more severely.

Alonso was pretty closely matched with Leclerc on his run, while Piastri struggled.

Rival teams watched Verstappen’s run and their hearts sank. One senior figure described it as “brutally fast”.

In truth, many of the teams look like they have made a step forward since last year. In their own way, the Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin all look good out on track.

But as McLaren team principal Andrea Stella put it: “One car seems to have found a big step; unfortunately the car that was already the quickest last year.”

Even before the new cars began to emerge earlier this month, it was expected that Red Bull would again start the season in front.

The theory was that last year’s car was so fast that they had been able to stop developing it early and still keep winning, allowing them to focus more effort on to the new 2024 car.

And when the RB20 emerged last week, it was obvious where that extra work had gone. The car was packed with innovations, including its vertical sidepod air inlets and the big, broad tunnels running back from the cockpit sides.

When it broke cover in testing, and it was possible to see more of the car, further striking features emerged.

There were horizontal cooling inlets after all, in addition to the new vertical ones, but they are secreted under the top of the cutaway sidepods, underneath which the space for downforce-producing air has been further opened out.

Looked at from above, the rearward tunnels form a kind of bathtub shape reminiscent of that used by Ferrari on their 2022 car, which reduces drag.

Even to the untrained eye, the car looks like a piece of art, another masterpiece from the team under Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey, the greatest designer in F1 history.

Experts seem to have the same view.

Stella, an engineer himself, said: “I have to say, when I saw the car, I was like: ‘Wow’. They were certainly brave in changing some of the shapes that made that car so successful last year.

“They could enjoy such an advantage last year that gave them a confidence from a timeline point of view to take some risks because they could take the risks early on to see whether it works.”

Stella pointed out that the best bits of the Red Bull have probably not even been seen yet.

“In these regulations, a lot is in the millimetres and a lot happens in what we don’t see between the underneath the car and the ground,” he said.

“So what we can actually see [is] not necessarily the most impactful in terms of the step forward they made.”

Picking the order of the teams behind Red Bull is less easy, for the following pack seems close again.

Both Ferrari and Mercedes had plenty of work to do to improve wilful cars from last year, and both seem to have been successful.

Leclerc said: “Drivability was where we focused the most, where we struggled like crazy last year. This year the driveability seems to be better.

“But a better car to drive doesn’t mean necessarily that it is a more competitive car, so we need to be careful with this and keep working, as Red Bull remains the reference and we have a lot of work to do.”

Russell said: “It does feel a step in the right direction but there is no hiding the fact that our competitors have done a really great job.

“We knew we had a mountain to climb with the performance Red Bull showed last year. The car is feeling nice to drive. Red Bull seem to have done a really great job and they are favourites.”

If one had to guess at an order behind Red Bull at the first race next weekend, it would be Ferrari and Mercedes next best, with Ferrari perhaps edging the battle on one-lap qualifying pace.

Aston Martin look close behind, while McLaren appear to have slipped a little, at least on the evidence of this test on this circuit.

After that, Red Bull’s rebranded second team, RB, showed promise, as did the Williams in the hands of Alex Albon.

Alpine, as ever in testing, are hard to read but unlikely to be troubling the top five teams, while Sauber and Haas again look set to be bringing up the rear.

But that’s just an impression formed from three days at one circuit. Everyone agrees that the field behind Red Bull looks closely packed again, which will increase unpredictability over 24 races on 24 different tracks.

That’s the longest season in history, and if Verstappen and Red Bull are as good as they look, it’s going to feel like it.