F1 racing, Bahrain GP test run: Red Bull affirms its level, Ferrari rekindled

(Sports news, F1 racing news) More than 3 months since the most exciting F1 season of the turbo hybrid era ended, the audience is looking forward to a new year with the revolutionary technical change of the cars. car 2022 and new surprises. The first official day of running has brought hope of a new confrontation between young riders.

The day before FP1 on Friday, bad news came to the Aston Martin team when their champion – Sebastian Vettel has tested positive for COVID-19 and will have to miss the first race. first of the season. However, the racing team does not need to worry too much when they have a “super reserve” driver and he will have his 4th return to F1 since 2020 – that person is Nico Hulkenberg.

Hulkenberg returns to F1 after nearly 18 months

The German driver, after losing his official position in 2019, had 3 alternative races in 2020 for Racing Point because Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll were positive for COVID-19. This is the 4th stage he returns as a “super substitute”, but this time it will be more difficult with a completely new car. And he only had 24 hours from being summoned while… lying in bed until FP1 started.

FP1: Gasly is the fastest, “rebellious youth” back in the day

Pierre Gasly and AlphaTauri are the P1 runners in the first run of 2022 at the Bahrain GP. The French driver uses Soft tires to achieve the best, 1 minute 34,193s, 0.364s faster than Charles Leclerc in P2, using Medium tires. The Ferrari steering wheel had a 360-degree slide before finishing in the top 2 after 21 laps. Teammate Carlos Sainz was right behind with a slower 0.054s.

Gasly tops first FP1 in 2022

George Russell on the new Mercedes was in 4th place and was faster than his brother Lewis Hamilton (P7) by about 0.25s. Defending champion Max Verstappen kicked off his title defense campaign with a 5th place finish at FP1, as he saved the Soft tires for later runs. Followed by Stroll and teammate Hulkenberg ranked 14th after an hour of first experience with the 2022 car with 22 laps.

Fernando Alonso in the ‘pink’ Alpine had a P8 record while Esteban Ocon was the first red flag trigger of the season after part of his sidepod fell on the straight, dragging a lot of debris causing the turn to run. must pause. Rookie Chau Quan Vu ranked 11th for Alfa Romeo, unfortunately teammate Valtteri Bottas could not complete any timers due to an engine failure in the car setting.

Ferrari has positive results

McLaren continued to struggle despite upgrading the brakes, as Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, who recently recovered from COVID-19, ranked 16th and 17th respectively.

FP2: Red Bull-Ferrari takes the lead, the Mercedes continues to have problems

The FP2 run takes place in the evening, at the same time as the main race, so it is also the session where we can most accurately assess the position of the racing teams at the moment.

The first minutes belonged to the “war horse” Ferrari when they showed their strength on Medium tires, and far ahead of the competition. However, Red Bull and Verstappen turned the situation around when using Red Soft tires after the first 20 minutes. The defending champion set a record of 1 minute 31,936s, also the only one to go below the 1 minute 31 second mark including the test 1 week ago.

Hamilton and Mercedes will have many things to improve

Leclerc managed to close the gap with Verstappen in the second time round, and lost only 0.087s – 2nd overall. Sainz also improved in the second timed round, and once again rose to the top 3, but was also nearly 0.6 seconds behind the Red Bull driver. Russell kept P4, lost to Sainz 0.009s and ranked 5th was Alonso, the last driver in about 1 second compared to Verstappen.

Alfa Romeo promptly repaired Bottas’ car, let the Finnish driver have an impressive run, and finished FP2 in 6th place, a position no one thought he had parted with Mercedes. Perez ranked 7th, less than 1s behind his teammate, the Mexican driver ranked above the surprise of this run – Haas racing team. Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen in the first leg of their return to F1, had the 8th and 10th fastest results respectively, a result that exceeded the expectations of the US team. Thanks to that, in the top 10, there are 5 Ferrari-powered cars present.

P6 surprise for Bottas

Lewis Hamilton was only ranked 9th, having problems with unstable vehicles such as the plane going through bad weather and front brake failure. However, driver #44 did not use DRS in both runs, which shows that he has not yet unleashed his full potential. McLaren continued to “sink” in the bottom half of the rankings when Norris ranked 11th and Ricciardo P18, had a water leak problem in the last minutes.

Gasly P1 ran in the afternoon but had difficulty watching in cooler conditions, ranked 13th overall and right above teammate Yuki Tsunoda – the driver is being investigated for obstruction in Leclerc’s lap. Guan Yu finished 15th while Hulkenberg focused mainly on testing for the main race, so he only got 17th fastest.

Overall, Red Bull and Ferrari have spoken on the first day of the Bahrain GP, ​​while Mercedes will only show 100% of their strength tomorrow, with a qualifying run not to be missed.

Detailed results on Friday at Bahrain GP 2022:

FP1

FP2

According to Roger Bui (Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Magazine)