2022 Pre-season Testing Thoughts

And so the Bahrain pre-season test has concluded. As always with modern testing, the times are irrelevant, but testing can reveal poor reliability, mood music, and some other matters.

Kevin Magnussen gets the unexpectedly vacant seat, formerly of Russian lout Nikita Mazepin, who lost his place due to his billionaire father’s proximity to slaughter enthusiast Vladimir Putin. Magnussen’s a good and pretty obvious choice for the team as he was their driver before the Schumacher-Mazepin pairing, and he can be quick (he’s also sometimes rubbed drivers up the wrong way with his on-track antics, but he’s a mote compared to the Mazepin beam).

Ricciardo has another bad start to a season with McLaren. He only got one and a half days of running at the previous not-officially-a-test, and for this one had COVID-19, which meant Norris did all the driving. However, the team had the fewest laps completed of anyone due to a still unresolved brake problem which meant they couldn’t do long run work. A partial fix didn’t remedy the malady, but there is supposed to be a fix going to be ready for the Bahrain Grand Prix next week. If it doesn’t work, they could be in trouble.

Hamilton’s claiming Mercedes won’t be competing for wins in their current shape. However, it’s worth remembering the team had a bad pre-season in 2021 and in the end came quite close (ahem) to winning the title. The super skinny sidepods got a lot of attention, but the car has looked a bit of a handful. Interestingly, his suggested order (which could be nonsense) of pace was Ferrari, Red Bull, then McLaren/Mercedes.

While not as unexpected as the Mercedes' anorexic sidepods, the sculpted flanks of the Red Bull were still a very significant shift, and they’ve fiddled with the front wing a bit before settling on a relatively straightforward design. Consensus seems to be, from others, that the Red Bull is looking like the team to beat.

In shock news, Ferrari had both smooth running in testing, and looks to have good pace. Along with Red Bull, many think they’re the top team in terms of speed, but only in the first race, when sandbags are fully jettisoned, will the order become clear. Between Leclerc and Sainz they have an extremely good pairing whose driving style seems similar enough to avoid the Verstappen-Perez setup conflict that makes the life of every second Red Bull driver difficult.

Alpine are not looking like they’ve ascended from the midfield to competing for regular wins/podium finishes, but they should still be in a competitive midfield. AlphaTauri looked nice and reliable, without being spectacular. Small reliability problems did affect Alfa Romeo a little, but they still got a lot of running in. Vettel’s malfunction on-track (causing the car to stop) was not enough to derail Aston Martin’s pre-season. Williams is also a Formula 1 team.

Haas looked quicker than might be expected, despite delayed freight and a sudden driver change.

Interesting that the pecking order seems to be Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, with McLaren potentially in there once the brakes get fixed.

Ferrari may be value for the Constructors title, with Verstappen standing, seemingly, a good chance of retaining his title.

However, Mercedes had a bad pre-season last year and went on to win the first race.

The gaps matter more than the order when it comes to an exciting season for neutrals, and for betting.

At the time of writing (the morning of the 13th of March) Hamilton remains favourite for the title at 2.4 with Verstappen 3, while Leclerc is 6. Russell is 8, Sainz 11, Norris 23, and Perez 41 (which shows how Red Bull stands). All odds from Ladbrokes.

Leclerc and Sainz are 5.5 and 7 respectively to win in Bahrain, and if you have a free bet this is worth a shot.

Bahrain’s race weekend is less than a week away. We shall see how things stand, particularly if Ricciardo is better and if McLaren can sort their brakes out. Quite looking forward to it.

 

Morris Dancer

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