Formula 1 concludes its Bahrain testing program and gears up for the first race of the season: McLaren or Ferrari as the second force?
It’s a duel between Ferrari and McLaren for the role of the second force in the upcoming F1 World Championship, while keeping a close eye on Mercedes. The Woking-based team completed the three-day testing session not without some difficulties, attributed to reliability issues and the new design of the new MCL38. A contrasting situation in Maranello, which clocked kilometers after kilometers without any major hitches.
Formula 1 leaves Bahrain – or rather, returns to the hotel for a few days – with some certainties. The first, loudly proclaimed in the paddock, is that Red Bull will be ahead of everyone. To what extent is unknown; we’ll have to wait another week, but some are already ready to assure that Max Verstappen will add a fourth star to his helmet.
Behind Milton Keynes, the situation becomes much more competitive. Scuderia Ferrari has shown an excellent race pace and impressive performance, strengthening its candidacy as the second fastest car on the grid. McLaren and Mercedes are more challenging to decipher, for opposite reasons. If the Brackley team slightly hid their performance, while showing excellent pace, McLaren had to face more than one issue.
Both the second and third days saw the MCL38 spend a lot of time in the garage, under the care of its mechanics. Despite halving the work on race pace, encouraging signs have come in, considering the performances of the past two seasons: “This year the situation has improved [compared to 2022 and 2023], we feel more prepared, confirming the team’s progress,” emphasized Andrea Stella.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection! Click here to enter the F1 online Store and shop securely! And also get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
The hierarchies, however, seem clear to the men from Woking. From what emerged in Bahrain, “we are behind both Red Bull and Ferrari,” confessed Lando Norris. This implies that, according to the data collected and analyzed by the McLaren technicians, the probable grid for the first race will see Red Bull ahead of Ferrari, then McLaren, and perhaps Mercedes. A marked improvement compared to Bahrain 2023.
We just have to wait for another week, eagerly anticipating the grand spectacle of Formula 1. The silent hope of the entire paddock is for Max Verstappen not to win all the race and not to completely dominate as was the case in the 2023 Formula 1 championship. However, it will be up to the others to prevent the extremely long 2024 F1 calendar from turning into a season with a predictable outcome.
Source: f1ingenerale
Leave a Reply