What Bahrain trackside viewing reveals about F1 2024

Where else to start, but Red Bull. The reigning world champion squad did have something of a tricky start to testing when Max Verstappen was regularly having to back out of corners on the opening morning. But it’s all relative and, in any case, the RB20 looked utterly planted by mid-morning on Wednesday.

A day later, with Sergio Perez at the wheel, it was a similar story. Each time the Mexican driver made his way through the high-speed left of Turn 7 at the start of the second sector in the opening session of the test’s middle day, he was able to whip his car’s nose through the continuous rotations quicker than his rivals. It’s a visibly faster change of direction – and not just here.

PLUS: What we learned on day two of 2024 Bahrain F1 testing

At Turn 11 at the end of the track’s back straight, the Red Bull sweeps in with commanding agility, whereas its rivals are more sluggish. This could be a sign of a heavy fuel load, but the rapid rotation trend has been clear for Red Bull ever since it lightened the RB18 mid-way through this design era’s opening campaign two years ago.

The car just looks planted at all the key spots – other than Perez misjudging his braking on the odd occasion into the Turn 8 hairpin and varying his line a lot coming out of the tricky, near double apex Turn 13, which is effectively the track’s penultimate corner. This is a key spot, which we’ll return to, for several reasons.

For a start, it shows up car balance well, as they need to start rotating fast after the drivers brake or else wash out wide and lose momentum and time. It’s also very gusty here throughout our wanderings on Thursday and the cross/tailwind change will show up the cars that are particularly sensitive to wind (the new ground-effect machines became even more sensitive to this with the raised floors introduced to eliminate porpoising for 2023). 

Finally, Bahrain’s abrasive track surface and demanding cornering energy load means Turn 13 shows when the rubber has given up and therefore the machines that can keep it alive longest.

Bahrain's Turn 13 offers a useful glimpse into how each 2024 F1 car is working

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Throughout our sun-drenched stint on the corner’s outside on Thursday afternoon, nothing ruffles Perez once he’s found a consistent line. Not even the wind picking up considerably 90-minutes into the second session can seemingly knock him off-course as he pounds around on the C3 tyres.

And, intriguingly, the same can be said for Daniel Ricciardo at the wheel of the RB. Low-grip conditions and situations have favoured the package since its Abu Dhabi 2023 floor upgrade, so this spot shows the car well when it’s still lacking compared to others in the high-speed stuff.

But, of course, much has been made of the former AlphaTauri squad forging even closer ties with its Red Bull senior team since rumours the wider Red Bull company was considering selling its junior outfit emerged here a year ago. And while Perez and Ricciardo end up apart on the day’s timesheets (second and fifth, separated by 0.7s), their shared through-corner poise is clear and therefore notable.

The McLaren was the first of three cars to have huge oversteer snaps as they traversed the direction-changing gusts – rears stepping out violently. These moments were either side of the Red Bull and RB serenely sailing by unruffled

On the tyre front, the Red Bull is showing little in the way of wiggle, time after time, on corner exit. This suggests it has retained its edge in this critical area for race success. Overall, such is the car’s harmony, Perez is able to get on the power earlier coming out than any other machine while feeding his way through the complex and down the hill towards another smooth tour.

We’re only watching Perez at all thanks to the test encountering a nasty surprise with just over 90 minutes left of the first Thursday session. This was, with awful echoes of the 2023 Las Vegas FP1 shambles, thanks to a drain cover being worked loose on the approach to Turn 11.

It’s been clear how the drivers’ lines here have evolved to take them very far to the right-hand side of the track. Two-thirds of each car moves on the kerbs before flicking left on turn-in as they aim to open up the long, sweeping and uphill left-hander to reduce strain on the tyres all while maintaining speed.

This naturally takes more of the powerful underfloor ground-effect suction onto the drains and it was this that caused the metal to come loose. Unfortunately, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc struck the cover, which necessitated a floor change on the SF-24 due to the damage sustained, as did Lewis Hamilton in the following Mercedes. The red flags duly flew and Thursday’s opening session was not restarted.

The Red Bull RB20 looks to be the most stable on acceleration

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Hurried repairs followed – the drain cover fully removed and its surround ground down with an axle grinder. A replacement cover was then welded into place and eventually declared safe for the action to continue.

This meant Thursday’s afternoon running started an hour earlier than planned, but continued on until the scheduled 7pm finish time. As was the case in previous years here, the final running featured a staged red flag, so the officials could test the start procedures ahead of the new season. A brief ‘race’ ensued, sign-posting the proper action to come here a week on Saturday.

As hurried updates were made to the lunchbreak media schedule – Lando Norris and Kevin Magnussen no doubt devastated to miss their press conference appearances as they had to switch in for Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg respectively – Red Bull also swapped Verstappen’s planned takeover of the RB20 to the test’s final afternoon.

Now jumping forwards in time to our Turn 13 observations, Norris is an important reference. This is for a spell late in the first half of Thursday’s second session, where the wind had really started blowing hard from the small island’s east and its exposed side to the Arabian Gulf.

The McLaren was the first of three cars to have huge oversteer snaps as they traversed the direction-changing gusts – rears stepping out violently. These moments were either side of the Red Bull and RB serenely sailing by unruffled. Norris’s former team-mate Carlos Sainz was the second driver to catch a potential big moment – but more worryingly for the Spaniard his occurred at the very start of a stint on the C3s rather than deep into one as Norris had been.

Ferrari could be in for some trouble when conditions get windier

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The third save came slightly later – once Norris and Sainz had come by several times more on the on-off-on-off-on-off run plan the teams can enjoy during testing compared to the need to press on consistently during race weekend practice outings. It was completed by Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll.

The Canadian’s moment was no bigger than those that had come before, but a wandering up the incline behind the course to look down onto the area where Turn 12’s exit becomes the Turn 13 approach, revealed he’s still struggling more even when the wind calms. Stroll often needed an extra steering bite when he came through on a push lap – the green machine’s nose too-ing and fro-ing over the road as he did so.

To give a taste of some others, here Magnussen was squirming plenty whenever he puts the power down on Turn 13’s exit for Haas. This suggests the rear tyres are still being tortured by the American squad.

Time after time, Hamilton was almost backing the Mercedes into the right-hander – then having to tame rear sliding (as Stroll often did too) when it came to putting the power down on the exit

Logan Sargeant and Esteban Ocon, meanwhile, were more ponderous at the wheel and therefore slower on the power coming out of Turn 13 for Williams and Alpine respectively. Now we jump backwards in time – a twist in the tail.

Shortly before the red flag, we’d been watching the cars descend to the tight Turn 8 right-hand hairpin – checking to see how each package stacked up on braking stability. This is key to providing confidence for the drivers when pushing.

The standout outliers were Mercedes and Aston – Hamilton consistent at the wheel of the W15 while at this earlier stage on Thursday, Fernando Alonso was in the AMR24. The two cars, with their shared push-rod rear suspension layout, were visibly oscillating upwards and downwards as they slowed each time by.

Alonso, who locked heavily twice during our view of this stage in proceedings, later said the situation “feels tricky”, when Autosport asked what had been going on with the AMR24’s braking.

Alonso locked up heavily twice during our trackside viewing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“But I think the conditions the [first] two days, especially with the wind, has been tricky for everybody,” Alonso continued. “And we saw a few moments even for Max in the first couple of laps [of day one]. It didn't last long but it was difficult for a few laps at least on the Red Bull…”

Back in Thursday’s late afternoon running outside Turn 13, we’ll end on Hamilton given his driving was by far the most interesting here. The clear takeaway was that the Mercedes was sliding at this point much more than its rivals.

Hamilton was regularly taking a wider line to lessen the strain on the tortured tyres by this point in the lap, but it was clear his main struggles were happening on the way in. Time after time, Hamilton was almost backing the Mercedes into the right-hander – then having to tame rear sliding (as Stroll often did too) when it came to putting the power down on the exit.

The problems arose seemingly every time the seven-time world champion was trying to push on to the end of a quick lap. It was a beautiful, almost drifting, style, but it notably lacked the poise of the Red Bull and the RB.

The conditions might well have been key here too, however, as once we’d returned to the media centre to watch the running conclude on F1’s TV coverage as darkness had fallen – and, despite it being Bahrain, we were chilly – the Mercedes did finally appear to be handling more stably across the course.

Mercedes looked to find more stability as evening fell in Bahrain

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images