With all the necessary finesse apparently at the end of these three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain, a certain hierarchy still emerges, which risks not pleasing Red Bull’s rivals. is Fernando Alonso himself took stock of this first contact with the 2024 single-seaters. “I think the 19 drivers in the paddock now know they’re not going to win the title”Aston Martin Driver launched.
If Ferrari set the best time of the week, they did it on Friday with the softest tyre, C4, but also C5 for Leclerc. At next week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, the only tires available will be C1 (hard), C2 (medium) and C3 (soft). And Red Bull (Sergio Perez 5th, Max Verstappen 6th) never wore tires softer than C3 during these tests.
In a press release, Pirelli indicated the approximate differences between its tires: a tenth of a second between C1 and C2, about a second between C2 and C3, a seventh between C3 and C4.
Alpine is far from the best
According to a qualifying pace simulation created by the official F1 website, Red Bull will be the fastest team, 22 seconds ahead of Ferrari, 38 seconds ahead of McLaren and 56 seconds ahead of Mercedes. A good surprise will come from Racing Bulls, who are the 5th team in the field, and bad for French fans, from Alpine, only a second behind in 7th. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, running only C3 tyres, finished 16th and 17th in these tests.
media Motorsport-Total “It was fun” to set the pace estimate in the race and Red Bull’s margin of lead is also wide, 45 hundredths over Mercedes, 50 over Ferrari and 55 over Aston Martin. In these rankings, Alpine is only 9th at 1.50.
Of course, all these simulations/predictions will probably be called into question during the first free practice next Thursday, but we can easily imagine that Red Bull is still ahead this year.
