Bahrain Test – Day One

Bahrain Test – Day One 

A couple of days ago we were enjoying the race – and what a race it was! With Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel winning the race and now 7 points in the lead of the World Championship.

Before Russia in a couple of weeks, teams are participating for in-season testing and here’s all the latest from the Bahrain Test – Day One!

Bahrain Test – Day One: Mercedes 

Not the best of starts for Mercedes with Hamilton running into a little bit of a glitch with his car.

The cause of the breakdown is still unknown but the car had to be lifted back to the pits with a 30-minute delay in the morning session.

Hamilton rarely runs during in-season testing which shows the importance to Mercedes in order to improve their car as much as possible.

After the race, Hamilton said – “We have some work to do in the test, we are trying to strengthen the car and also our knowledge of the tyres to allow us to be in a better position for the next race.”

After the issue he faced, Hamilton then set a fastest time of 1:31.358

His team-mate Bottas will also be participating in testing this week.

Bahrain Test – Day One: Ferrari 

It was a calmer situation for Ferrari with Antonio Giovinazzi testing the car – second fastest on the timesheets and sixth tenths down on Hamilton’s time.

The current Championship leader, Sebastian Vettel was in action however he was testing the Pirelli 2018 tyres and will switch to ‘normal’ testing on Wednesday.

Bahrain Test – Day One: Red Bull Racing 

Daniel Ricciardo was back behind the wheel of the RB13 at the Sakhir Circuit and even though the team had a successful morning, a power unit issue in the afternoon forced the team to call an early stop to running.

Daniel Ricciardo – “It was a good outing for the aero department, we did a lot of data gathering in the first hour and that all went to plan – which is important for the guys, even though for a driver it’s not the oct thrilling thing as you’re just trundling around really…”

“After that, we did a few runs on the soft tyre and made a few technical changes which were interesting – we then completed a few runs on the supersoft and I think we discovered a few things there.”

“You try and do some bigger set-ups than you might do on a race weekend and it was interesting to see what the results were in those changes. We were planning a few long runs in the afternoon but obviously – the power unit issue prevented that.”

Bahrain Test – Day One: McLaren

It was a challenging day for the McLaren-Honda team on day one of in-season testing in Bahrain.

Test and development driver, Oliver Turvey got behind the wheel of the MCL32 for the first time on track, however – shortly after he completed his install lap, the engineers detected a water leak on the ERS System.

This prompted a full PU change to further investigate the issue.

Despite the lack of mileage covered in today’s running, the team is happy that it was able to collect some useful aero and PU data which will be analysed to help shape the programme for tomorrow’s final day of testing when Stoffel Vandoorne will take over the driving duties.

Oliver Turvey – Test and Development Driver McLaren 

“I’ve been looking forward to getting in the car, it’s been two years since I last tested so I’m really grateful to McLaren-Honda for giving me this opportunity to drive here in Bahrain.”

“It’s frustrating to have had an issue this morning which cost us a lot of track time, for me – every lap in Formula 1 is beneficial and it was great to be back in the car.”

“I’ve got a few laps in at the end of the day and managed to get enough of a feel for what the car is like. The guys have all been working really hard in the garage and I want to say thanks to to the team for helping me get back out on the track.”

“The cars are definitely a lot more enjoyable to drive this year.”

Eric Boullier – Racing Director 

“After Oliver completed his installation run this morning, we discovered a water leak in the ERS which required a full PU change.”

“We suspect the issue related to those we encountered over the race weekend in Bahrain but the circumstances are slightly different so until the Honda engineers have also done a full investigation – we cannot be sure.”

“I’d like to praise the guys and girls in the garage who all work really hard once again to change the PU so we could return to the track – it’s a tough job being made tougher after a long couple of weeks away from home.”

“The team will be working hard overnight – as usual, to be ready for testing tomorrow and hopefully we can have a more productive day than we managed today.”

Bahrain Test – Day One: Sauber

For the Sauber F1 Team, everything on the hot track in the desert went according to the plan on day one.

Marcus Ericsson was at the wheel of the Sauber, mainly doing set-up work and later on the focus was on the tyre and brake work. Able to gather a lot of information – it was a great run with Ericsson completing 105 laps overall.

Marcus Ericsson 

“It was a very good test day. We completed our program and I did the most laps of everyone. We were able to run through a lot of different set-ups and we worked quite hard on the tyres to get them to work as we want in the right window.”

“I think we made some good progress there and it’s been promising for the next couple of races.”

“We have been scanning through some different settings which we hadn’t had a chance to do so far this season. On that side – we found interesting data for improving the performance.”

Bahrain Test – Day One: Force India F1

The Force India team completed 71 laps in the first day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit with Alfonso Celis Jr behind the wheel.

Alfonso Celis

Time – 1:33.939

“It was a straightforward day for me and I completed more than a race distance. There have been a lot of changes since I was last in the car in Barcelona.”

“The first few laps were a bit of learning process, fortunately the aero programme at the start of the day gave me some time to get used to the car again.”

“We were able to complete some performance runs in the afternoon but I ran into traffic each time so I couldn’t really take everything out of the car.”

“The temperatures out there were much hotter than I’ve ever experience and it was useful for me to understand how to manage and look after them. All in all – I felt pretty comfortable in the car and I’m happy with my performance.”

We have lots more coming soon!

The Formula 1 Girl 🙂

xx

Images – Sky Sports F1, Sauber F1 Team, McLaren-Honda, Force India F1 Team,