What did F1 testing in Bahrain tell us about the new season?

Red Bull were the clear No 1 team at testing but while Aston Martin also impressed, Mercedes already have work to do

Three days. That’s all the F1 teams had – in official terms – to test their 2023 cars before they hit the track for the first race of the season this weekend.

Hosted at the Bahrain International Circuit, with the Gulf country also staging the inaugural Grand Prix of 2023, drivers only had a day-and-a-half to fine-tune their cars and experiment with different strategies and fuel-loads.

Max Verstappen, last year’s world champion, was the only driver to run throughout the entirety of the first day and was the fastest, with Red Bull continuing where they left off in 2022.

Sergio Perez, his team-mate, was quickest on Saturday while Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu came in with a rapid time on soft tyres late on Friday to top the timesheet. But what did the lap tallies and times tell us about each team’s chances this season?

Here’s everything you need to know from testing ahead of the Bahrain GP:

Red Bull on a roll

Undoubtedly the No 1 team at testing was last year’s double world champions, Red Bull.

Consistently the quickest team throughout the whole weekend, Verstappen topped the leaderboard on day one and Perez did the same on day three.

What may be of greater satisfaction to Christian Horner and his team – and worry to the rest of the field – is their reliability, with Verstappen completing over 150 laps in that full day of running.

A year on from a devastating double-retirement late on in Bahrain, a repeat looks unfathomable this coming Sunday.

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will be delighted after testing (AP)

Ferrari will be right up there

Having completed seven race distances over the three days, Ferrari were strong and always towards the top of the timesheet – without quite holding the No 1 spot by the end of the day.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will be content with where the SF-23 is though. Quite whether optimism is as high as 12 months ago – when Leclerc led home a dream-like opening race one-two – is another story, but much like last year they are a clear No 2 team at this stage.

Fred Vasseur, the new team principal who replaced Mattia Binotto in the off-season and has already made changes to the team’s much-maligned strategic department, described the mood in camp as “perfect.”

We’ll see how perfect it is by Sunday night.

Trouble for Mercedes

A large portion of the lens for this three-day testing window was focused on Mercedes – have they sorted their problems from 2022?

On one count, it seems so. Toto Wolff and his drivers were all singing from the same hymn-sheet when it came to porpoising and bouncing. Eradicated, on the whole.

Yet that didn’t mean other issues didn’t crop up. A Friday to forget saw Lewis Hamilton struggle with the balance of the W14 while George Russell’s session was curtailed early due to a hydraulic failure.

George Russell’s time at the wheel on Friday was curtailed due to a hydraulics issue (Getty Images)

Both drivers have been guarded in interviews about their chances of a win in race one. The word being thrown out from the Silver Arrows camp on a regular basis is “eventually”.

With a new upgrade package due for race six in Imola (mid-May), we may well have to wait until then for Mercedes to unlock their car’s potential this year. Yet will that be too late?

Aston Martin the success story of testing

Well, well, well, do we have a team ready to spice up the midfield… and beyond?

Aston Martin are the talk of the town after testing. Fernando Alonso, who has joined from Alpine, showed both terrific lap times and solid race pace in practice runs.

And Felipe Drugovich – the Formula 2 champion filling in for the injured Lance Stroll – put himself in the window for an F1 debut this weekend with a solid set of laps.

With millions worth of investment, a new Silverstone-based factory and now a two-time world champion in their stable, Aston are undoubtedly this year’s dark horse.

Fernando Alonso showed terrific lap times and race pace for Aston Martin (Getty Images)

Points will be the minimum. Podiums very achievable. And even a Grand Prix triumph could be on the cards.

What of the rest of the teams?

If Aston Martin were the winners at testing, McLaren were the losers.

The Woking-based team, spearheaded by the supreme Lando Norris and highly-rated rookie Oscar Piastri this year, have plenty of work to do after a testing showing a sheer lack of speed and issues with the car cropping up. Problems for the papaya.

Alpine will be confident they can retain their spot at the top of the midfield, with Aston looking their closest rivals currently, while Haas and Alfa Romeo will be there or thereabouts on testing’s evidence.

AlphaTauri and Williams will have some work to do this year to score points on a regular basis, though rookie drivers Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant did not look out of place at the wheel of an F1 car.

With all teams trialling different approaches, it’s hard to get a firm assessment heading into the new season. Next time, though, the stopwatch will not lie.

The first race of the 2023 season – the Bahrain Grand Prix – takes place this Sunday at 3pm (GMT) – and you can follow live coverage throughout the race weekend on The Independent.