SAHIR, Bahrain. One day before the start of pre-season testing, returning from F1 Kevin Magnussen set the best lap of the week, setting the time set over his Haas team’s extended run.
Magnussen, who previously played for Haas from 2017 to 2020, replaced Russia’s Nikita Mazepin on the team ahead of this week’s tests. On his first day in the car, he ousted Carlos Sainz from the top of the time table by lapping 0.325 seconds faster than a Ferrari driver using the same compound tyre.
The time was set during an extended test period for Haas, which was set after the other nine teams completed another test session. An additional hour on Friday, as well as another three hours on Saturday, was given to the team to make up for Thursday’s delay due to cargo delays en route to Bahrain.
During the regular eight-hour test on Friday, with all 10 teams on the track, Sainz posted the fastest lap, 0.4 seconds ahead of the rest of the team. Times were also set for the C4 compound tire – the second softest Pirelli offered – and was fast enough to fend off a comparable attempt by Max Verstappen in a Red Bull car on the same tyre.
Fuel loads and engine settings are unknown outside of each team’s garage during testing, so it’s possible that Verstappen’s times would have been about the same if everything was even, but it’s also possible that Sainz could have increased his lead – like showed Magnussen’s impressive lap pace later in the evening.
In any case, another strong performance from Ferrari on Friday helped reinforce the growing perception that the Italian team had the best start in 2022 under the new F1 technical regulations.
And while Ferrari appears to be back at the sharp end of the grid again, reigning constructor champions Mercedes could be in trouble.
The team unveiled their heavily redesigned W13 car on Thursday but struggled to get performance out of it during both days of testing this week. By the end of the session, Lewis Hamilton had completed one lap on Pirelli’s softest compound tyres, but his best C5 lap time was still 0.609 seconds short of Sainz’s C4 and 0.934 seconds short of Magnussen’s.
When asked after the session what the result of the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend would be if it took place tomorrow, Hamilton replied: “I really don’t know. I think Ferrari… from what I see today, Ferrari will probably get 1-2.
“Or maybe Red Bull.”
Sainz downplayed the conversation during Friday’s press conference when asked about a quote from Hamilton’s teammate George Russell that Ferrari was the favorite ahead of the March 20 opener.
“Typical Mercedes, typical George,” Sainz said with a laugh. “Just cheer up others, and then come to the first race and destroy the competition.
“If they did it in their first year I would have believed them, but they have been doing it for five or six years now and continue to surprise us in the first race.”
Mercedes has won eight Constructors’ Championships in a row, an F1 record.
The redesigned Mercedes looked difficult to drive and continued to pit bounce as the team experimented with ways to solve the dolphin problem it had been suffering from all week. On the positive side, Russell was able to complete the race simulation in the morning session, which should have given the team a lot of data to work with and look for improvements.
The second day of testing in Bahrain also turned out to be something of a car breakdown, with 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit) pushing the cooling solutions to their limits.
The most dramatic accident occurred at the Williams when the rear brakes of Nicholas Latifi’s car caught fire as the desert heat reached its peak around noon. The first signs of trouble came when smoke began to come out from under the rear wheels of the car, but Latifi tried to return to the pits in the hope that the air flow would put out the fire.
He got to Turn 13 – two turns from the pit lane – when the left rear wheel buckled under the heat and stress of the corners, causing the car to skid into the runway. Flames engulfed the rear of the car as soon as it came to a stop, and there was a small explosion as the marshal tried to put out the fire.
Both Latifi and the marshal were unhurt, but the problem ended Williams’ run after only 12 laps. McLaren continued to deal with brake cooling issues during the second day of testing after its performance on Thursday was also limited by brake issues. Although the team experienced nothing as dramatic as Williams’ shot, Lando Norris was limited to 54 laps on Friday after just 50 laps on Thursday. In the final hour, Norris also stopped on the track seconds after exiting the pit lane, prompting a red flag.
Norris was not scheduled to drive the McLaren on Friday but was substituted when Daniel Ricciardo was ruled out for the second consecutive day due to illness. Ricciardo felt unwell on Thursday morning, meaning he missed that test session as well, but the team confirmed he did not test positive for COVID-19.
Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo also caused a red flag when his car stopped at Turn 9 in the last minutes of the morning session. The FIA had hoped to test their race restart procedure with a dummy starting grid at the end of the session, but after lining up on the starting grid for the aborted start procedure, Bottas’ car came to a stop on the track on the next lap before the starting grid could change. restart in racing style. Bottas finished the day as the 11th fastest overall.
Esteban Ocon also caused a red flag in the afternoon when his Alpine car stopped on the track. Up to this point he had had a productive day with a total of 111 checkered flag laps and a sixth fastest time.
Sebastian Vettel stopped at the track in an Aston Martin in the last hour of the morning session but quickly returned to the track once the car was restored, assuming there were no major problems with the car. Teammate Lance Stroll took over the Aston Martin in the afternoon and set the fourth fastest lap with a time of 0.857 seconds from Magnussen using the same C4 lineup.