Max Verstappen continues in the positions of honor, ferrari as a “prudent” favorite, Lewis Hamilton “At the moment” he does not value fighting for victories: that would be the summary of the F1 pre-season tests, which ended this Saturday in Bahrain.
On the time sheet he is the current champion Verstappen the one that appears in the first place, 695 thousandths ahead of the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 978 thousandths ahead of the Spanish Fernando Alonso (Alpine), and 1 second and 39 thousandths ahead of the British George Russell (Mercedes).
However, these differences must be weighed by virtue of the different tires chosen: Verstappen and Russell carried the softest, fastest one lap.
On Mercedeswhose bodywork was one of the surprises in this second test session with almost missing pontoons on the sides, the beginnings are not encouraging.
“At the moment, I don’t think we are going to fight for victory but the car has the potential to do so,” said Mercedes’ Briton Lewis Hamilton on the final day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain circuit.
“Next week (in the first Grand Prix, on the same circuit), we will have a much better test of our pace, but I don’t think people will be surprised, maybe…”, continued the seven-time champion of the world.
“I’m sure everyone can see, we are not the fastest at the moment,” said the current runner-up in the world, behind the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
“Ferrari seems to be the fastest and maybe Red Bull, and then us or McLaren, I don’t know. We are not at the top right now,” warned Hamilton.
“We ended up aware that there is still a lot of work to do,” acknowledged Hamilton, who won the Bahrain GP last year after being dominated by the Red Bulls in pre-season testing.
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