Hamilton upbeat after Bahrain test
BIC, Sakhir – Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) hosted an action-packed four days of Formula One pre-season testing last week, and Mercedes took the opportunity to show why they are being dubbed as serious title contenders this season.
Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton were both on top of the timesheets on separate occasions.
Rosberg set the pace on day four en route to registering the week’s fastest lap, while Hamilton clocked his quickest the day before, which was second-best for the week at “The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East”.
Both drivers were also in the top-half of the field the two other days, signalling their strong pace and reliability.
Together, they managed to register the second-highest number of laps of 315. That translated to roughly 1,705 kilometres of running around BIC’s world-class 5.412km track – a satisfying number for the pair.
“We can be very pleased with the first test in Bahrain this week,” said Rosberg, whose fastest lap of the week was one minute 33.283 seconds. “We completed a lot of mileage and learnt more about the car with every lap we achieved.”
The German was among the busiest drivers during the week, completing 174 laps alone in Mercedes’ F1 W05 challenger.
He added, however, that there is still plenty of work to be done to be best-prepared for the start of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship in Australia in mid-March.
“There is still some way to go for us to manage the reliability before Melbourne as this will play a huge factor in the early races, but we’re hopeful that we can make another step towards achieving this next week,” Rosberg said.
Hamilton clocked a best lap time of 1:34.263 in 141 laps of work in his share of two days.
“We’re trying to find any issues we can now to prevent them happening during a race situation,” explained the Briton.
“The car seems to be responding well to my style of driving and the power unit is looking promising. We won’t know where we are for definite until we get to Melbourne so we’re just continuing to focus on our run programmes, keep positive and look forward.”
Like Mercedes, McLaren were another team to show their strong potential for the season in the first four days in Bahrain.
Kevin Magnussen put his team in first place on day two with a 1:34.910 lap, which was the week’s third-quickest overall.
“It’s a dream every time I get in the car; it’s just so cool to be here and to be driving – I’m really enjoying it,” said the Danish rookie, who managed 127 laps during his time behind the wheel of McLaren’s MP4-29.
“We’re still learning a lot about the car,” Magnussen added. “We have four more days of testing next week and there’s still a lot of work to do. I’m sure everything up and down the pitlane will change a lot between now and Australia.”
Magnussen handed over testing duties to teammate Jenson Button for the last two days of week one. Button was also in good form, setting the fourth best time of 1:34.957 and going for 169 laps in all.
While Mercedes and McLaren had plenty to smile about, World champions Red Bull were left frustrated.
Sebastian Vettel was forced to sit out most of his first day in the RB10 when he managed just 14 laps. He then went for 59 laps the day after and registered his week’s best time of 1:40.224. That is not good enough, however, if he hopes to clinch an unprecedented fifth straight drivers’ crown.
Vettel remains seven seconds off of Rosberg’s overall pace and ranked only 17th among the 24 challengers over four days.
Despite this, Vettel remains positive, even after watching Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo complete just 43 laps in the final two days of testing, with a best time of 1:39.837.
“Obviously there is a lot still to do,” Vettel said. “It was good to get a proper first-feel for the car and it feels OK but there’s a lot more to come. It’s difficult to talk about catching up [to rivals] because I don’t know what other people are doing. We’re learning every single lap, even if the quality of the lap is sometimes not the best. However, the most important thing is to run and we did that.”
Among the rest of the field, the two other Mercedes-powered teams of Force India and Williams were not far behind their leading counterparts.
Force India were on top of the times in day one with Nico Hulkenberg in the cockpit. He had a best lap of 1:36.445, which was good enough for fifth-best in the week.
Williams, meanwhile, finished with the highest mileage amongst all the teams. They completed 323 laps in all over four days, equivalent to roughly 1,685km. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were both in the fastest 10, while newly appointed test and reserve driver Felipe Nasr also had a good day out.
The three squads with Ferrari engines – Ferrari, Sauber and Marussia – were up and down.
Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen had the sixth and seventh-best times in their F14 T, but Raikkonen crashed to end the final day.
Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez had the week’s ninth fastest lap, suggesting potential; while Marussia had the most troublesome outing of all the teams, running for just 29 laps all week.
Elsewhere, the three other Renault-powered sides joined Red Bull in having a forgettable week.
Toro Rosso, Lotus and Caterham were all hoping to bounce back after previously showing poor form in the pre-season’s first tests in Jerez, Spain. Lotus did not run at all then.
But the resurgence they were looking for in Bahrain did not materialise. They were all in the bottom half of the times for the week and are around five seconds off the pace of the leading cars.
The teams have four more days of testing in Bahrain, and things can change as quickly as the cars go.
With all the new rules and regulations in place for the 2014 campaign, the teams are now scrambling to get the best out of their challengers, adding to the importance of the remaining days of running at BIC.
Testing resumes at BIC on Thursday and continues until Sunday. It will be the final tests of the pre-season.
The 2014 campaign flags off with the Australian Grand Prix on March 14 to 16. The teams will then head to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysian Grand Prix on March 28 to 30, after which it’s back to Sakhir for the Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix weekend from April 4 to 6.
DRIVERS’ BEST TIMES FOR FIRST WEEK
1 Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:33.283, 174 laps
2 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:34.263, 141 laps
3 Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1:34.910, 127 laps
4 Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:34.957, 169 laps
5 Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:36.445, 137 laps
6 Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:36.516, 161 laps
7 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:36.718, 126 laps
8 Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:37.066, 65 laps
9 Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber, 1:37.180, 151 laps
10 Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:37.328, 171 laps
11 Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:37.367, 76 laps
12 Felipe Nasr, Williams, 1:37.569, 87 laps
13 Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:38.707, 85 laps
14 Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1:38.974, 57 laps
15 Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:39.837, 43 laps
16 Kamui Kobayashi, Caterham, 1:39.855, 83 laps
17 Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:40.224, 73 laps
18 Adrian Sutil, Sauber, 1:40.443, 89 laps
19 Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso, 1:40.472, 77 laps
20 Romain Grosjean, Lotus, 1:41.670, 26 laps
21 Marcus Ericsson, Caterham, 1:42.130, 102 laps
22 Max Chilton, Marussia, 1:42.511, 21 laps
23 Robin Frijn, Caterham, 1:42.534, 68 laps
24 Jules Bianchi, Marussia, no time, 8 laps
TOTAL LAPS PER TEAM FOR FIRST WEEK
1 Williams (Mercedes), 323
2 Mercedes, 315
3 McLaren (Mercedes), 296
4 Ferrari, 287
5 Caterham (Renault), 253
6 Sauber (Ferrari), 240
7 Force India (Mercedes), 213
8 Toro Rosso (Renault), 134
9 Red Bull (Renault), 116
10 Lotus (Renault), 111
11 Marussia (Ferrari), 29
