What we learned on the final day of F1 testing in Bahrain

It’s a fact: Sergio Perez is the fastest Formula 1 driver in 2023... so far. The Red Bull racer posted the quickest time of all in Bahrain as the one and only pre-season test reached its conclusion on Saturday evening. He guided the RB19 round in 1m30.305s at an average speed of 134mph. Given the Mexican did his best work when fitted with ‘only’ the second-softest tyres, the abiding take away on day three at Sakhir is that Red Bull is the paddock and fans' favourite heading into the curtain-raiser.

Perez had the car to himself as he turned in some 133 laps to exploit the final opportunity to troubleshoot and refine set-up prior to the opening round of the calendar back at the circuit in a week’s time. It certainly marked an improvement on how his day started, as the red flags were called into action after just seven minutes when an aero sensor dropped off his car. When he was able to find a rhythm, he was far more content behind the wheel after a Friday blighted by lock ups across compounds and too often running wide down at Turn 10.

His best effort, delivered as daylight turned to dusk, pushed him 0.359 seconds clear of Mercedes runner-up Lewis Hamilton. That left the top of the leaderboard to read a remarkable 1.4s quicker than Max Verstappen’s test-topping effort of last year. It also means that, despite the downforce-cutting 15mm floor rise for 2023, the grid is already two tenths up on Charles Leclerc’s 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix pole time set on the previous-spec C3 Pirellis. Not bad when the host of testing caveats are considered - unknown fuel loads, engine modes and varying run plans.

Valtteri Bottas completed the top three ahead of Leclerc, whose 1m31.024s time is well worthy of consideration since it stood as the fastest run of the morning, which entails running in far hotter and less favourable conditions when the track isn't fully evolved.

The final session ran without a red flag incident to end three days of running notable for their comparative lack of stoppages and shunts. That lack of drama (bar some faux wheel-to-wheel racing in the dying minutes that went down a storm in the media centre) has drawn plenty of criticism this week, an almost inevitable by-product of testing now being broadcast live on TV, which itself is symptomatic of the popularity boom F1 is enjoying. But we learned that those in the paddock rate the cars going round in data-gathering circles as a roaring success.

PLUS: Does F1 testing need an injection of excitement?

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner said: “I think it’s the best one Formula 1 has ever had. Everybody doing the laps. If you go to the lap count from previous seasons on the first test, this never happened before in my opinion. I'm so amazed about it. Five years ago, every two, three hours there was a red flag. Now we all do the laps. Boom, boom.”

The improvement in 12 months alone is remarkable. Wind back to Bahrain running last year, keeping in mind the three-day shakedown in Spain had already been held a fortnight previously, and the field completed 3117 laps. This time around that number rose to 3992.

Bottas was one of the rare casualties of car reliability during the Bahrain test, stopping on track during Saturday's first session

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

However, that’s not to say everyone was impervious to a bit of fragility. Aside from the clumsy Perez pause, the only other non-scripted red flag was called for Bottas parking up at Turn 8 with a gearbox gremlin aboard his Alfa Romeo. Meanwhile, Haas completed a hat-trick of days that were lightly hampered by a throttle issue. But McLaren’s problems were more far more protracted.

One of the standout plots from the test has been the understeering and lazy-looking MCL60. The papaya machine was back in the wars on Saturday afternoon. Lando Norris was benched for several hours while the team sought to temporarily strengthen the front-wheel winglet. Autosport understands that mechanics have spent their time prior filing away at the carbon fibre here to stop it from fouling the wheel. That alone isn’t a problem unique to this team or car. But allowing it to compromise mileage seems to bespeak of the array of lingering niggles facing McLaren.

The outcome was that Norris could not undertake any meaningful performance running or a race simulation as he turned in just 37 laps and McLaren only 81 tours all day. The team with the next fewest tours was Alfa Romeo, which still circulated 131 times, despite Bottas' stoppage.

Steiner might have deemed it the best-ever test, but day three did perhaps lack the last-minute ‘wow factor’. While Perez topped the times, it wasn’t quite the late glory run turned in by Verstappen to lead testing 12 months ago, when many stopped what they were doing and turned their gaze to the live feed.

“We’ve had a couple of difficult days and yesterday particularly was difficult… George has had a much better morning today, so things are going up, so hopefully we’ve got the set-up in the middle of the place” Lewis Hamilton

Nevertheless, you’d now be hard-pressed to find anyone who argues for a team other than the Milton Keynes squad as having ‘won’ testing. Ominously, when fulfilling media duties at lunch time, Verstappen revealed that the RB19 has definitely taken a step over its 17-grand prix-winning predecessor and that it requires an altered driving style to be fully exploited thanks to a raft of evolutions. While teams and drivers are always reluctant to give too much away at any point before the first qualifying shootout of the season, an openly “happy” Red Bull camp is a camp to be feared.

Verstappen explained: “I think the car is working really well. [We’ve] just been going through a lot of things that we wanted to try, and everything is very interesting, what we have been trying. So very positive days for me. And just in general enjoying driving the car.

“There are quite a few differences in the cars. It definitely drives a bit different. I think that's also a bit related to the tyres. But overall, I think it's definitely an improvement from last year. We already have things in the pipeline coming, and just work in progress.”

Lewis Hamilton says the 2023 Mercedes still retains elements that made the 2022 car so difficult

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Part of the Red Bull testing imperiousness comes with Mercedes and Ferrari still not nailing their final opportunity in Bahrain. The red flag-inducing Friday hydraulics pump failure for George Russell prematurely ended a day upset by poor car balance. An overnight repair job and set-up tweaks turned the W14 into a more stable machine to leave the squad upbeat. However, Hamilton did reveal that, even though bouncing has been largely eliminated, the 2023 machine retains some of the underwhelming shortcomings of the draggy W13 that carried the team to its comparatively lowly third in the points.

He explained: “It’s difficult to sum [progress on new car] up. We’ve had a couple of difficult days and yesterday particularly was difficult… George has had a much better morning today [running to second in the times behind Leclerc], so things are going up, so hopefully we’ve got the set-up in the middle of the place.

“Right now, for example, the bouncing that we had has pretty much gone. That’s a huge step for us. It’s nice to drive it without the bouncing in the corners. But there are still some underlying things that we are working through… Some of the balance limitations that we had last year are present.”

The atmosphere at Ferrari was similarly contained. Leclerc confirmed a less draggy SF-23 after trialling front wing angle adjustments and the car's thinner rear wing, although reckoned the gains on the straights had been met with compromised cornering as the Scuderia has again focused on downforce rather than hit improved mechanical grip.

Also coming to light is how much rivals have rated Aston Martin’s testing performance. The car has looked lithe in the hands of Fernando Alonso. The AMR23 appears quick to turn in and mostly stable under power. As of today, other teams have now firmly cottoned on, talking up the impressive running from Lawrence Stroll’s squad that could launch itself to the front of the crammed midfield.

Off track, the main talking point has been the reaction to F1 teams, the FIA and FOM planning a vote after the British Grand Prix to decide whether to go ahead with a ban on tyre warming, a news story reported by Autosport on Friday. The argument in favour of getting shot of tyre blankets is to improve F1’s sustainability credentials and to cut costs.

Max Verstappen is fine with a ban on tyre warmers in F1 - Lewis Hamilton believes it's dangerous

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

It is now known that the field is split. Verstappen and Pierre Gasly are in favour of this added element to the driving demands so long as the Pirelli compound is up to standard. But Hamilton let his fierce opposition be known.

“I think it’s dangerous,” he said, when asked by Autosport. “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.

“The 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.”

All of what we've seen in testing will be put to... well, the test in a week's time at the Bahrain GP

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images