The 2022 first pre-season testing session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona should be taken with a grain of salt. Because many teams had problems with bouncing on the straights, and because major upgrades are still to come in Bahrain. auto-motor-und-sport.de analyzed under which conditions the personal best times were set.
Anyone who expected the Barcelona tests to provide the ultimate answer to the new balance of power in Formula 1 will be disappointed. There wasn’t one. The bouncing of the cars on the straights had too much influence on the lap times. And many teams apparently came to Spain with only a basic model, which will be upgraded mightily before the season starts in Bahrain. Especially Mercedes and Red Bull.
There were also no race simulations, which are usually a good indicator because all the drivers start with roughly the same amount of fuel. Instead, the main task in the Barcelona testing session was to collect data, give the drivers the opportunity to adjust their driving style, and give the engineers a clear direction on how best to tune the cars. The setup work required many conversions and stints of reasonable length to draw a relevant comparison between configurations.
Time chasing was not a priority, although some teams tried it, especially on the last day, to get a clue and see how the tires behave when the throttle is really pushed. At least that’s what it showed: if the drivers already went to the limit in the first two sectors of the Circuit de Catalunya, the Pirelli tyres still tended to overheat in the third sector.
To identify a trend, AMuS analyzed the fastest laps of all teams in detail. At what time they were set. With which tire compound. How long the stint around it was. Whether it was a one-off. And how the driver in question spent the rest of the day.
Impressive Charles Leclerc-Longrun
The bottom line was that Ferrari seemed in the best position. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were able to set their fast laps with more ease than the competition. At all times of the day and above all even on the harder tires. Ferrari didn’t touch the C4 and C5 compounds at all on its fast laps.
Charles Leclerc set his personal fastest lap on day two on the fourth of a total of 18 laps. The Monegasque broke the 1.22 mark 17 times on the day and effortlessly reeled off 1.22 laps in a row on his longer outings.
McLaren came the closest to Ferrari. The British team also showed impressive consistency over the three days, but Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo already needed the C4 tire for their fastest laps.
Norris marked his fastest time on the first day. It was the second lap of a seven-lap stint. And it was the second attempt. Shortly before that, he had already driven seven laps in a row with a best of 1m 19.951s. The British driver broke the 1m 22s wall a total of 14 times that day.
Mercedes only fast with C5 tires
Red Bull and Mercedes still have to improve. Mercedes more than Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell already had to unpack the C5 tire to finish first and second on the final day of testing. Max Verstappen was six tenths slower than Hamilton’s best time on the C3 compound, and Sergio Perez was 0.418 seconds slower on the C4 rubber.
Both teams lost a lot of time on the second day of testing. Mercedes because of sensor problems, Red Bull because of issues with a fuel pump and the drive of the MGU-K. It wasn’t until the final day that last year’s World Championship opponents got out of their shoes. But it seemed more tortured than Ferrari and McLaren. Max Verstappen pitted again after five laps for his fastest time, while George Russell after just three. The drivers complained about understeer.
In the long runs, the world champion in the Red Bull was in the 1.22 window. However, not as confidently as the Ferrari drivers. At Mercedes, the trend was more toward lap times beyond 1.23 minutes. For both teams, the focus was on learning.
Alpine still has to improve
Alpha Tauri made the best impression in the chasing pack. Pierre Gasly completed three stints of seven laps each in quick succession on the second day. Three of them were always under 1m 21s. The Frenchman was on C4 tires. Williams was also surprisingly consistent. The last day was spent refueling. Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi finished in the good midfield with 1m 20.318s and 1m 20.699s respectively. And that was on C4 tires after all.
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At Aston Martin and Alpine, the knot has not yet been untied. Sebastian Vettel’s attempts to push the lap times below 1.20 minutes required Pirelli’s C5 tires. He managed it twice, but only by being on the track for three laps. If he did seven laps in a row, the lap time was 0.8 seconds slower. The engineers admitted that they could only solve the bouncing problem by driving high and hard at the rear. That cost lap time.
Fernando Alonso set his best time in an eleven-lap stint, but Alpine didn’t look confident. The car was too well-behaved, the longer stints too slow. Added to this were problems with the DRS mechanism. Those who couldn’t open the rear wing lost seven tenths on the lap. A hydraulic fire ended the performance prematurely, as Alpine ran out of spare parts.
Light at the end of the tunnel at Haas
Alfa Romeo and Haas would have liked to be able to complete more laps. Both are difficult to assess. Valtteri Bottas was near the bottom of the table with a time of 1m22.288s, but the Finn also only completed 54 laps over three days. His fastest lap on day two was sixth in a ten-lap turn. Almost a race distance from the former Mercedes driver’s point of view. Rookie Guanyu Zhou had visual contact with the Williams.
The Haas drivers only had a reasonably normal program on the second day. And there, the lap times gave reason to hope that the U.S. racing team had caught up with the field.
Nikita Mazepin’s 1m 21.512s on C3 tires during a five-lap stint are a compliment to the qualities of the Russian’s car. Especially when you know that Mick Schumacher is usually at least half a second faster.
The Swiss-based German was four tenths slower than his teammate this time, but he also had enough fuel on board. Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher completed twelve laps in a row for his best time.
Team boss Guenther Steiner sees light at the end of the tunnel: “Considering that we were hardly able to do any set-up work due to the many problems, our guys’ lap times were promising.”
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