THE ‘FRONTRUNNERS’ SO FAR
The headline results of the Barcelona test have a group of legendary squads apparently leading the way, with all four not only showing strong pace – and all insisting there is much more to come – but fine reliability to boot. The question though seems to be if this is a clear top four, always with the potential to grow to include more squads come qualifying in Bahrain – as F1 hopes will be the case with the new rules – or if two are indeed clear of the rest, just as they were before…
Ferrari topped the second day and has produced what appears to be a very consistent machine in the corners. Its on-track running was essentially bulletproof as it managed the biggest lap count of all teams.
Carlos Sainz Jr said Ferrari is“nowhere near to the limit of the car or finding where the performance is”. But what is clear is that the F1-75 has impressed rival teams – and certainly not just because of its superb livery, which has been well received in the paddock (as has, on a sartorial note, the decision to clothe the Maranello team members in black trousers for the first time in a generation).
One possible negative assessment for Ferrari was how loud its car was sounding across the three days, suggesting its engine may have been turned up more compared to other teams’– most notably
Red Bull, which was cutting its way around Barcelona at a far quieter level than any other car.
Ferrari was edged out in the one-lap stakes by Mclaren, as Charles Leclerc’s 1m19.689s on the C3s on the second afternoon came in just 0.121s behind Lando
Norris’s effort on the C4s from the opening day.
The new Mclaren is likewise looking compliant and predictable for its drivers through the corners, and barely encountered the porpoising problem that has vexed other squads, other than when testing different aero parts that changed the MCL36’S aero platform.
But it was notable how often Mclaren was dousing its car in flow-viz aero tracing paint. This could just be down to the team opting to use fluorescent yellow as opposed to the white variety used, for example, at Mercedes, but the team was keen to downplay its potential during launch season because its new windtunnel is still being constructed at its
Woking base. Correlating what it has been testing in Toyota’s Cologne facility will have been high on the team’s priority list last week. Plus, Norris did lose time when he stopped at the
pit exit during the opening afternoon and had to be recovered by his mechanics due to an issue put down to new car‘teething problems’.
“The competition is looking very tight between the teams,”said Mclaren team principal Andreas Seidl.“there doesn’t appear to be any clear leader or backmarker at this stage, even though there are a wide range of philosophies and solutions up and down the grid.”
At the top of the times were Red Bull and Mercedes. Their rivals had insisted that the 2021 frontrunners would retain elements of what made them so successful last year, in terms of race team operations and the knowledge of what it takes to win, and visually at least they are again looking very strong on track at the start of 2022. Both the RB18 and the W13 are rotating through corner entry so fast and remaining so much more stable than any of the other cars.
Red Bull also appeared to be holding its cards closer to its chest at Barcelona, by leaving it until late in the final afternoon before fitting the C4s for a short performance run for Sergio Perez. His 1m19.556s came in 0.418s slower than Lewis Hamilton’s test best, and behind Russell’s effort also set on the softest C5s at the end of the morning session during the flurry of fast times that were interrupted by the red flags.
But this must be viewed in the context of the slightly harder compound difference (and the C2 and C3 tyres were operating best in the cool, for Barcelona, conditions last week) and the sense that both teams were carrying a decent amount of fuel each time they headed out.
“We will consolidate some things that we have learnt here before Bahrain,”said Red Bull head of race engineering Guillaume Rocquelin. “But it is more considerate than a big step.”
That is an interesting note to strike. The Red Bull design does appear more complex than the Mercedes’– especially around the sidepods, but also considering the push-rod, pull-rod differences across the RB18’S rear and front suspensions. There is a lesson from 2019 that is worth remembering – when Mercedes returned for a second test at Barcelona with essentially a different car, such was the development progress added to the early design that it had produced for the opening running. Such a drastic change would inevitably be more difficult in the cost-cap era, but it has been suggested that both frontrunning squads are indeed set to arrive in Bahrain with major development packages.
At Mercedes, Hamilton explained that it“definitely had some
“THERE DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE A CLEAR LEADER OR BACKMARKER, DESPITE A RANGE OF PHILOSOPHIES”
obstacles to overcome”, but nothing that impacted its reliability, as it finished second in the mileage count on 393 laps. The seven-time world champion conducted a race run on the final afternoon, with times that did bounce around as he went through the compounds from C4 to C2 in what Mercedes called a“tyre sweep”.
But the most notable aspect of this run was Hamilton repeatedly locking his left-front wheel at the Turn 5 downhill left as the stints edged towards their conclusion. Verstappen was having a similar issue on the opening morning at the same corner, which suggests, somewhat unsurprisingly at this stage, that finding a handling sweet spot is tricky with these machines. Upgrades will be aimed at fixing this.
And this is the kicker. Everything completed in Spain must be considered within the porpoising problem that enthralled the paddock last week. On the final afternoon, the Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari were all bouncing wildly approaching the Turn 1 braking zone, with Sainz’s car doing so most dramatically, although Ferrari insists its situation was better by the end of the test than it was at the start.
In testing, cars can be arranged to set competitive times with set-ups that may not be legal during race weekends, but re-engineering back to a point where they are fast and compliant is the goal. Indeed, it has emerged that Mercedes was only able to overcome the issue and gain lap time late in the Barcelona test by adding floor stays to reduce high speed flexing. This reinforces how much time there is to find for the teams that solve the porpoising challenge best and fastest through aerodynamic ingenuity.
As Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto put it:“the ones that will get there sooner will have an advantage at the start of the season.”