Bahrain Test 1 – The Assessment of the Four Days

As with the Jerez tests, Motors Inside provides you with a numerical summary of the first Bahrain tests. These figures are a compilation of data from the tests and do not reflect what the future hierarchy will be at the dawn of a season marked by significant regulatory changes.

To know the details of the four test days, check out our summaries:

– Première journée

– Deuxième journée

– Troisième journée

– Quatrième journée

The ranking of the best laps by driver:

As usual, lap times should be taken with a lot of caution, and comparisons are difficult to establish. However, four men stood out during these tests, all clad in grey as the two Mercedes drivers topped the timesheet, with Nico Rosberg even falling just a second short of his pole position time set last year at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The times set by Mercedes on soft tires over the last two days suggest that the Brackley team allowed itself to somewhat test the performance of the W05. While these times don’t clearly indicate the level of the Mercedes compared to their competitors, they do demonstrate that the F1 cars are not as slow as some have claimed. Behind Rosberg and Hamilton, the two McLarens are present, once again with a Mercedes engine.

If these four drivers went below the 1:35.0 mark, the others did not cross the 1:36.0 threshold. This includes the Ferraris, which indicated they weren’t seeking performance. Among the fleet of German engines, another Ferrari engine, that of Gutierrez’s Sauber, but with a delta of more than four seconds among the top 12, these figures cannot provide a reliable picture of the hierarchy.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by the drivers:

As in Jerez, it was Nico Rosberg who was the most diligent. Spared from major issues, the German was able to cover 941.7 km of the Sakhir circuit, which is equivalent to more than three Bahrain Grand Prix, with a distance of 57 laps (308.2 km). The Mercedes driver has accumulated over 1774.2 km since the start of private testing, which is practically the distance of six races.

Behind him, with over 900 km each, Valtteri Bottas and Jenson Button also showcase the excellence of Mercedes engines and confirm the apparent reliability of Stuttgart’s hybrid unit in much hotter, and thus more representative and demanding, conditions than in Jerez in January.

Alonso is not lagging behind and, with his 871.3 km covered during this first Bahraini session, he ranks second in the overall winter testing, with 1637.3 km traveled. The Ferrari engines seem relatively reliable, although the problems encountered by Sauber and especially Marussia tend to temper the enthusiasm around the Italian power unit.

Among the drivers who haven’t had much track time are the Marussia drivers, Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton, as well as Romain Grosjean, who endured the painful debugging of the Lotus E22 and could only complete 26 laps. It’s not much better for Daniel Ricciardo, with 43 laps, who is one of the four drivers who have still not covered the distance of a Grand Prix since the start of testing (eight days). His leader and four-time world champion, Sebastian Vettel, isn’t much better off: with his 443.8 km completed since the beginning of the season, he’s among the most unfortunate drivers.

The number of laps completed by the teams:

On the teams’ side, it is not really surprising to find three structures equipped with a Mercedes V6 Turbo at the top of track attendance. The few problems encountered by the German engine allowed Williams, Mercedes, and McLaren to accumulate laps and significantly progress in their respective programs, with the latter two even indulging in some performance stints or even race simulations.

Behind, Ferrari is still there. The engine powering the F14-T allowed the Reds to cover the equivalent of five Grand Prix over the four days. The surprise comes from Caterham, which is the most assiduous Renault-powered team and is well positioned in this ranking, with 253 laps for approximately 1370 km covered in total in Bahrain.

Red Bull and Lotus managed to cover the distance of two Grand Prix during this session, which is progress, but that’s three times less than the best in this field. These tests, however, turned out to be catastrophic for Marussia, which still hasn’t covered the distance of a single race in five and a half days.

The number of laps completed by motorcyclists:

As expected, on the engine manufacturers’ side, Mercedes dominates the competition. All of the brand’s V6 Turbo engines covered the equivalent of 20 Grand Prix in four days (6207.6 km), bringing the total for the Mercedes engine, since Jerez, to over 10,000 km completed.

Behind, Renault bounced back a bit by accumulating 3323 km on the Sakhir circuit and overall, ended up ahead of Ferrari in this ranking, with the Italian hybrid unit covering more than 3000 km. However, this performance should be put into perspective as, on average, Ferrari-powered teams covered 1003 km compared to 830 km for teams supplied by Renault.

Thanks to the information acquired during these four days of testing, the different teams will rework their cars to try to improve the performance and reliability of the various systems. However, they only have a few days before the start of the next testing session, which will take place in Bahrain from February 27 to March 2, and which you can follow live and in full thanks to the live coverage from the Motorsinside.com editorial team.