Formula One kicked off three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain on Thursday with Red Bull’s double world champion Max Verstappen starting as he means to carry on.
The Dutch 25-year-old was top of the morning timesheets at Sakhir, although teams were focused on aerodynamic testing with prominent rakes attached to the cars in their first proper running.
Verstappen won 15 of 22 grands prix last year and will be chasing his third straight title when the 23-race season starts on March 5.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was second, 0.294 seconds slower but on top for a majority of the session, with Williams Alexander Albon third and doing the most laps (74).
“It’s always like the first day back at school where everyone is in the new uniforms and seeing the cars in their colours,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner of the first day with all the 2023 cars on track together.“It’s been a sensible first session for us, I think focused on learning a little bit about RB19 which is obviously very much an evolution from the 18. A sensible morning, plenty of mileage and some good feedback.”
Max Verstappen on Thursday. Getty Images
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said there was a buzz of excitement to be going back racing and it had been a productive first morning for a team that was struggling last year with a ‘porpoising’ car. The former champions had George Russell in action for the opening stint, with the Briton queuing up in the pitlane to be first out.
“He was generally happy with the car. It seems to be balanced in the right way. There’s no bouncing, which is good news, apart from that big bump,” said Wolff.
New Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur was also sounding relaxed, saying: “The first feeling was good. The most important was to do mileage and we had no issue. We were able to do the run plan and everything is going well so far.”
Indian connection
Ferrari’s long-serving race strategy engineer Ravin Jain has taken over from Spaniard Inaki Rueda as the head of strategy of the F1 team.
Reports say the Ferrari F1 team management decided to promote the Indian-origin Jain following a few costly strategy errors last season.
Ferrari did well last season with Charles Leclerc finishing second behind title winner Verstappen. Their other driver George Russell was fourth.
All-female series
Formula One’s new all-female F1 Academy series will be on the support programme for the US Grand Prix in Austin next October.
The five three-driver teams will be run by outfits currently competing in Formula Two and Formula Three.
The series aims to help young women up the motorsport ladder. No female driver has started a grand prix since the late Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976.