FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Zhou quickest as Mercedes hits trouble

Zhou Guanyu was the surprise of the second day of testing in Bahrain, as the Chinese driver set the fastest time of the session, beating Max Verstappen by just 0,04s, an encouraging result in the Alfa Romeo garage. But his lap time doesn’t mean Alfa Romeo is a title challenger, as the young driver used a set of the softest C5 tyres, to beat the double World Champion, with Red Bull remaining on the C2 and C3 tyres for the entire afternoon.

By Luis Vasconcelos

Zhou Guanyu was the surprise of the second day of testing in Bahrain, as the Chinese driver set the fastest time of the session, beating Max Verstappen by just 0,04s, an encouraging result in the Alfa Romeo garage. But his lap time doesn’t mean Alfa Romeo is a title challenger, as the young driver used a set of the softest C5 tyres, to beat the double World Champion, with Red Bull remaining on the C2 and C3 tyres for the entire afternoon.

Nevertheless, Zhou was a happy man at the end of the day: “It's good to see P1. But is only testing and we had the softer compound compared to people like Max and so on. But let's say we showed good potential, good pace the whole day. You know, this morning, this afternoon. This morning was only C3, this afternoon we put a softer one but both sets we were quite competitive and at the front runner of the midfield guys, so it's obviously good to see and also the car, we struggled a bit yesterday pm with Valtteri with the balance. But today we were able to work our way through it and seems to be working.”

Verstappen was again the clear pace setter, the Dutchman going 1.2s faster than his best time from Thursday and leaving the fastest Carlos Sainz, the fastest Ferrari driver a staggering 0.8s behind! Sitting out the morning session, to allow Pérez a first run on the RB19, Verstappen completed only 40 laps in the afternoon and after doing a couple of performance runs early on, focused on finding the best balance on high fuel levels, doing one long run with the C2 compound tyres and another one with the C3, both with impressive and consistent lap times. Again, the double World Champion downplayed the relevance of his lap times, saying that, “we focussed on the smaller details and took little steps. Again, the car was responding well to everything we did. We learnt a lot for next weekend and of course for future races as well. I’m very pleased with the testing period, every time I jumped in the car I felt comfortable and could push instantly.”

For Ferrari the day was not as encouraging, as the early signs that tyre degradation is an issue for the SF-23 from Thursday were confirmed on Friday. Both Carlos Sainz, who ran in the morning session, and Charles Leclerc, who drove after the lunch break, focused on longer runs but both on the C2 and the C3 compounds and both suffered with a considerable amount of degradation, a worrying sign that last year’s issues have not been resolved.

The drivers, however, put on a brave face at the end of the day, Sainz explaining that, “reliability was again very good and we've been able to explore all the set-ups we targeted to test. We keep exploring the limits of the car and finding potential areas where we can maximise performance.”

Leclerc added that, “we ran various tests today, with our main focus on the car’s set-up. We are working hard and it’s still too early to make any judgement yet. It was good to get some more laps down and we will keep pushing forward by analysing our data ahead of the last day of testing tomorrow.”

For Mercedes, after a promising first day of running, Friday was quite a bit of a wake-up call, as the W14 was suddenly a lot harder to drive than on Thursday, the rear end getting loose as soon as the drivers came off the brakes, mid-corner, when trying to put the power down as quickly as possible.

Lewis Hamilton had quite a few wild moments while trying to find the best possible balance for the car, but Russell’s day was cut short by an hydraulic failure that stopped him out on the track with almost two hours left in the session, costing the team valuable track session.

Hamilton said, “It was a difficult morning. The hot temperatures made it challenging with the tyres overheating, as we often see here in Bahrain. We got through our run plan though and it was good to get that mileage in. Everyone is working incredibly hard, staying focused, and we're discovering everything we can about the W14. We've got lots of work planned for the final day of pre-season testing tomorrow. "

Fernando Alonso, who drove the whole day, like Zhou Guanyu and Logan Sargeant, was again very impressive, already lapping considerably quicker than the best time Aston Martin achieved in qualifying for last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

But the Spaniard lost a bit of time when he damaged the underside of his car after running over a part that had fallen from Hamilton’s car at the end of the pit straight. Nevertheless, he was a happy man at the end of the day, saying that, “tt was a good day for us with a lot of laps completed – just what you need in a new car. We had a busy programme and tried a lot of different things. After a long winter it is good to get strong mileage under your belt early on and there is no better training than driving a Formula One car.”

It was also a positive day for AlphaTauri, with Yuki Tsunoda focusing on high fuel runs in the morning and Nick de Vries doing performance runs in the afternoon. The Dutchman used one set of C4 and one set of C5 tyres at the end of the afternoon, but the gap of 0.6s to Zhou was a bit concerning.

Still, De Vries was quite happy with his day of running, saying that, “it’s been another positive day, even though we had a red flag. The session was suspended, but we still managed to get through our programme. We were able to test quite a few things, so in terms of our day we are happy, and in terms of performance it is hard to say. We have one more day of testing tomorrow, so hopefully we can complete everything and put it all together for the race.”

BAHRAIN TEST RESULT - DAY 2 OF 3

Fastest Times:

1. Zhou (Alfa Romeo C43), 1m31.610s, C5 (133 laps)
2. Verstappen (Red Bull RB19), 1m31.650s, C3 (47)
3. Alonso (Aston Martin AMR23), 1m32.205s, C3 (130)
4. De Vries, (AlphaTauri AT04, 1m32.222s, C5 (74)
5. Hulkenberg (Haas VF-23) 1m32.466s, C4 (68)
6. Sainz (Ferrari SF23), 1m32.486s (70 laps)
7. Sargeant (Williams FW44) 1m32.549s, C5 (154)
8. Leclerc (Ferrari SF-23), 1m32.725s, C3 (68)
9. Piastri (McLaren MCL60), 1m33.175s, C3 (74)
10. Gasly (Alpine A523), 1m33.463s, C3 (59)
11. Magnussen (Haas VF-23), 1m33.442s, C3 (67)
12. Ocon (Alpine A523), 1m33.490s, C3 (49)
13. Russell (Mercedes W14), 1m33.654s, C3 (26)
14. Pérez (Red Bull RB19), 1m33.751s (61)
15. Hamilton (Mercedes W14), 1m34.094s (49)
16. Norris (McLaren MCL60), 1m35.522s (42)
17. Tsunoda (AlphaTauri AT04), 1m37.687s (68)