2024 Pre-Season Testing - Bahrain International Circuit, Feb 21 - 23

[bagajohny]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

[AR3-GP]

I am not sure how helpful this is, but here's the telemetry of the fastest laps of Max's last stint day 1 and Charles' last stint today.https://i.imgur.com/eEVgFgf.png .

I believe this could be more representative of the actual gaps than whatever we saw today. Engines seem down for RB more today than 2 days ago.

Track has a lot more rubber today than 2 days ago so it's not easy to determine the differences.

[DGP123]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

Totally agree. The paddock know the landscape, and they’ve been pretty vocal at telling everyone the state of the situation. Allison stating Ferrari are nearer Merc than RB is another example.

It will be another year of Max dominating, with Ferrari & Mercedes picking up the crumbs. All in all, not much has changed.

[Luscion]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

As usual take it with a grain of salt, cause ya know, testing but this is the pecking order suspected by motorsport total

[dialtone]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

As usual take it with a grain of salt, cause ya know, testing but this is the pecking order

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

[ali623]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

Agree, the fact that the group of teams behind are barely even referencing Red Bull when talking about gaps shows they're clearly in another league entirely.

[f1isgood]

I am not sure how helpful this is, but here's the telemetry of the fastest laps of Max's last stint day 1 and Charles' last stint today.https://i.imgur.com/eEVgFgf.png .

I believe this could be more representative of the actual gaps than whatever we saw today. Engines seem down for RB more today than 2 days ago.

Track has a lot more rubber today than 2 days ago so it's not easy to determine the differences.

True, good point. That would make the gaps even larger, won't they, given that Red Bull had better laptimes in a less rubbered in track.

Unless RB are playing with much lower fuel, the entire last stint of Verstappen towards end of day 1 is probably the most useful I think, although it's all a guessing game at this point.

[Cs98]

I am not sure how helpful this is, but here's the telemetry of the fastest laps of Max's last stint day 1 and Charles' last stint today.https://i.imgur.com/eEVgFgf.png .

I believe this could be more representative of the actual gaps than whatever we saw today. Engines seem down for RB more today than 2 days ago.

Track has a lot more rubber today than 2 days ago so it's not easy to determine the differences.

True, good point. That would make the gaps even larger, won't they, given that Red Bull had better laptimes in a less rubbered in track.

Unless RB are playing with much lower fuel, the entire last stint of Verstappen towards end of day 1 is probably the most useful I think, although it's all a guessing game at this point.

Max was doing short runs on a C3, not sure it's comparable.

[Vanja #66]

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

Magical wishes, hopes and dreams

[f1isgood]

Track has a lot more rubber today than 2 days ago so it's not easy to determine the differences.

True, good point. That would make the gaps even larger, won't they, given that Red Bull had better laptimes in a less rubbered in track.

Unless RB are playing with much lower fuel, the entire last stint of Verstappen towards end of day 1 is probably the most useful I think, although it's all a guessing game at this point.

Max was doing short runs on a C3, not sure it's comparable.

That is true -- Max's stint was isolated while Leclerc's was part of a race simulation.

[organic]

RB did pretty much no representative running that you can easily make direct comparisons to others except Max's C3 laps on day 1. The rest were on a program that was clearly different to everyone else. Annoying but luckily the paddock can analyse it better than us, and the paddock talks

Can compare the long runs of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes as they each did full race simulations. But even within that we had varying levels of sandbags.

[Xyz22]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

As usual take it with a grain of salt, cause ya know, testing but this is the pecking order

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

They may be forecasting a performance improvement based on track conditions and applying it to Russell's race simulation on the first day. Alternatively, they could be extrapolating the fuel level from the short stint he completed earlier today.

[AR3-GP]

After seeing all this I dont believe that gap between Redbull and rest of the field is just 0.3s as Marko said. It is definitely greater than 0.5s, maybe 0.8-1.0s if Max pushes the car to its limits. Redbull will need to do Ferrari level f*ckups for others to have a shot at winning races.

As usual take it with a grain of salt, cause ya know, testing but this is the pecking order

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

The reason these sims are being conjured out of thin air is because you have people in the paddock doing "corrections" of lap times for things like fuel, engine modes, track condition based on insider information.

I too didn't see this easily, but I also didn't see anything to write home about in RB's running either to be frank but perhaps with a more rigorous understanding of the variables, it suggest Mercedes is not so bad. This was stated by the Mercedes technical director too by the way.

[Cs98]

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

A bit silly to ask since Merc didn't do a proper race sim where we could establish their fuel levels from the outside. But Ferrari did, so presumably rivals have a pretty decent idea where Ferrari stand. That and the comment from Allison makes me not want to discount Mercedes. Now idk where they got that AMR number from, because Alonso's race sim was nowhere near half a tenth from Charles'.

[morefirejules08]

Doesn’t make sense. Can someone point out which race sim shows merc to be ahead of Ferrari?

A bit silly to ask since Merc didn't do a proper race sim where we could establish their fuel levels from the outside. But Ferrari did, so presumably rivals have a pretty decent idea where Ferrari stand. That and the comment from Allison makes me not want to discount Mercedes. Now idk where they got that AMR number from, because Alonso's race sim was nowhere near half a tenth from Charles'.

What did Allison say?