F1 Preseason Testing

00:00

McLaren on the backfoot, the return of porpoising and a new surprise contender? Preseason testing is over and I’ll be looking at what each team managed to do. So, get ready, because you’ve been summoned to the Steward’s Office.

00:23

Hello, everyone and welcome back to the Steward’s Office. I’m Saira and today we’re going to be talking about preseason testing.

00:32

ircuit as the teams put their: 2023

00:52

Testing this year definitely was less messy compared to last year. We didn’t see as much porpoising and there weren’t as many reliability issues either. Overall, things seemed to be running pretty smoothly.

01:09

I’m going to be doing a team-by-team breakdown of testing to see what went on over those three days. And of course, guys, it goes without saying: this is just testing. We can’t pinpoint exactly how a team is going to do based on their lap times or what they’re currently showing on track. We don’t know fuel loads, engine modes if the teams are bringing anything new to the car for the first race. So, let’s just keep that in mind. I can only really talk about what we’ve seen from testing and anything else I’ve read about because sadly, I don’t have any insider info for you guys.

01:50

Let’s start with the reigning constructors' champions, Red Bull. They definitely don’t seem like a team that are going to be struggling at all this year. They managed to get in 413 laps over the three days. Which wasn’t the most of all the teams, it actually left them in fifth place. But it was definitely a good showing from them.

02:17

Max took on a full first day of testing and you could see just how at ease he was with the car. Wasn’t really having to fight it, got some really good lap times in with no problems and didn’t need to spend a whole load of time in the garage which is always good. So, it looked like he could just get through the programme that RBR had for him pretty well.

02:40

Checo then took over for the first half of day two and I don’t think he looked as comfortable in that car as Max did and that’s not a huge surprise, to be honest. I wasn’t expecting him to. It wasn’t like he was completely struggling though and he did manage to get a good race simulation in that morning.

03:01

The afternoon did look to cause a few more problems with the team though. We had some boards got up around the team garage which teams aren’t actually allowed to do unless they're taking the floor off of the car to work on it. And I think there are a few of other reasons, maybe removing the PU. So, there are tight restrictions on why teams, and when teams, are allowed to have those boards around their garage.

03:25

It didn’t seem to be anything major in the end though. There was just a little oil leak that they needed to sort out, but it did cut into Max’s run time in the afternoon. Overall though, the Red Bull once again looks like it’ll be the dominant car of the season. It’s got good race and quali pace and is seemingly a nice car to handle. And for both of the drivers, they seem comfortable enough. With Max, extremely extremely comfortable. Knows how to handle the car. Is very happy with it. With Checo, I think he seems a little bit more comfortable than last season but you can tell this still isn't a car he isn't 100% happy with.

: 04:06

Moving onto Ferrari now, and onto something that’s not necessarily car related but during testing, the team announced that they now have a new head of strategy. With the amount of complaints that there have been about the Ferrari strategy last season, I’m not surprised they decided made this move.

04:28

Rueda, who was the previous head of strategy, has moved into a more factory-based role so he is still working within the team. But we now have Ravin Jain taking over the strategy team as he moves up from his role of race strategy engineer.

04:46

I really really hope that this move works out for the team and we see some improvements for them going on in the strategy department for them because strategy is a key part of any race. And in particular for Ferrari this year it looks like it's going to be especially important for them.

05:07

Tyre wear looks like it's going to be a problem for Ferrari. The main piece of news that was coming out of Ferrari's testing was that they are still suffering from pretty high amounts of tyre degradation. An issue that they also had last year. From what's been said, it looks like it's still a problem that Ferrari just weren't able to iron out over winter break.

05:32

I don't whether they were expecting it to be ironed out. I'm pretty sure they were hoping for it to be because nobody wants high tyre deg. But that still looks like it's going to be an issue for them.

05:45

There was also some bouncing with the Ferrari. Nothing massive, I don't think. To be honest, even when they had the porpoising last year it wasn't really effecting their speed the way it did with other cars. So, whilst it might be uncomfortable for the drivers, I don't see it being a huge issue unless the porpoising becomes too much that the FIA do end up having to step in.

06:09

No major issues with the car in terms of their reliability though. There was a small dimple that appeared on the Ferrari nose whilst Carlos was driving it. I don't know if you guys saw that on the F1 and Ferrari socials. But it wasn't anything massive§ and was pretty easily fixed when he pulled into the garage.

06:28

In all honesty, though, I think the main concern for them coming out of testing now, is that tyre degradation because I feel that we might end up getting the same story as last year if they don't fix this. And we're just going to have a case of where the cars can perform really well during quali, exceptionally well, but on race day the tyre deg and strategy ends up ruining the weekend for them.

06:54

Mercedes are up next and they were a team that I think that really were anticipating testing to see if they had managed to improve the car at all from last year. And of course, there was one main question that needed answered for this year was, and that was: is porpoising still going to be an issue for this team? And we got the answer to that pretty early on. No, it’s not going to be. Or at least it’s not going to be as much of an issue compared to last year.

07:27

Everyone in that team seems so much happier with the state of porpoising. The drivers seem a lot happier, the engineers, Toto. They all just seem have to have a much more positive outlook in terms of the bouncing and proposing that the W13 was facing.

07:51

There is definitely still work to be done on that car though and the team have been pretty vocal and open about that. Whilst it does look like a smoother ride, there were times during testing where it just didn’t look like an easy car to handle. You could tell it wasn’t going exactly where the drivers wanted it to. So, that’s something that needs to be worked on throughout the season, just trying to get that operating window a little bigger so they can find the right balance for the car.

08:22

There was a bit of an issue for Mercedes on Friday. George ended up stopping on track with a hydraulics issue during the afternoon session which isn't a big issue to fix but it did bring an early end to his running and Mercedes running for the day. What was more of a concern that day though, was the fact that they were experiencing a weird loss of downforce on the front axle of the car. And what didn’t help was the fact that a sensor that would have helped them diagnose the problem had also stopped working.

08:55

So, there was just a lot of bad luck for them on day two and Toto had said that it ended up leaving them feeling a little lost on where they were with their pace. He’d said that the overnight team would have to dismantle the car but in the end, that also hadn’t given them a huge idea on what was going on with that front axle. So, they had to use their morning session on day three to help them figure it out but it is an issue that seemed to be fixed.

09:25

The car looked like it had a much better balance on day three but it’s kind of hard to tell where Mercedes really are going to end up during the Bahrain GP. We already know that they're going to be bringing a new rear wing for the GP to help with them with their straight-line speed but and I think it’s pretty easy to tell that they are going to be behind Red Bull and Ferrari. Other than that, I couldn’t really pinpoint where they're going to be in the pecking order. In general though, I would say this was definitely a better testing for them compared to last year and there seems to be a lot more optimism in the Mercedes camp about what to do next and the things that they really need to work on. So a much smoother car, less porpoising, a happier Mercedes team. But I still think they've got a long way to go right now.

: 10:17

Onto Alpine now and this was an interesting one. I had kind of expected them to take a bigger step forward this year but from the looks of testing… well... they weren’t exactly stealing any headlines. There looked like there was a fair bit of porpoising from the Alpine that didn’t seem to be there last year. The onboard cameras didn’t make the Alpine look like a smooth ride.

10:46

And the car also doesn’t look easy to control. Definitely worse than the Mercedes in that respect, in terms of drivability and control. The pace was okay, they weren’t exactly hitting the top of the time sheets but it looks like Alpine focused on doing way more race simulations and opted to take on some heavy fuel load instead of doing any quali or performance runs.

11:09

Esteban thinks that the team are in a better place than they were this time next year and maybe they have a clearer idea of the direction the car needs to go in, compared to the things we know about their car. And Otmar has also said they’ll be some visual differences to the car for the first race. So, I'm expecting some upgrades and maybe that might help with the drivability of the car and a bit of the bouncing that we're seeing. I guess we’re going to have to wait and see though but I don’t think Alpine have shown their full potential just yet and they might be holding a little bit more back than most of the other teams are doing right now.

11:49

McLaren are probably one of the most disappointing teams from testing. Scratch that, they are definitely the most disappointing team for me, right now. They just made it over 300 laps over the three days and were the team that completed the least amount of laps. They spent A LOT of time in the garage which probably isn’t the place they wanted to be. In terms of laps they were getting a lot less data than what all the other teams were with the amount of running they were able to do.

12:33

I think the problems really started for them on Friday afternoon when Lando had taken over driving duties from Oscar. The car spent a fair bit of time in the garage that afternoon since there was a problem with the front wheel brows. It's an issue that some of the other teams had last year where they aren’t quite secure enough. So, the mechanics started some precautionary work on that before setting Lando out again. But they did manage to get the car but it wasn’t long before Lando was driving the car back into the garage and this time it seemed that there was an issue with the brakes. Specifically, brake cooling. And this was one of those issues that McLaren had had last year, especially at the start of the season. I remember this being an issue for them.

13:25

Day two in the morning, I saw the car in the garage, engine cover coming off. So, I don't know what issues there were there, or whether they were just adjusting the setup a little bit. But this also happened to be the same day that McLaren were quite open in saying that they hadn’t really met their development goals at the beginning of the year. Especially with the aerodynamics.

13:49

I hadn’t really expected a team to be open about the fact that they weren’t meeting the goals they’d set themselves. Especially during testing. But it almost seems that McLaren are just wanting to manage expectations right now and for McLaren fans that has gotta be so disappointing to hear.

14:10

Day three didn’t improve for them either. Neither driver was spending a lot of time on track. Lando had spent an awful lot of time in the afternoon in the garage while the mechanics worked on the car. And for both of the drivers, it's just not great not to be able to have that laptime that you know your competitors are having.

14:30

And for Oscar as a rookie, it definitely doesn't help. It's his first year in F1. He needs all the experience in an F1 car that he can get right now.

14:40

It looks like McLaren has a lot of work to do to climb their way up the field. Right now, it looks like they might be slipping for their standing of fifth in the constructors, at least for the first few races. They’re still trying to figure out their car though and they’ve said themselves, they need a couple of races to get a proper understanding of what’s going on with the MCL60 right now. I mean they've gone for a new car philosophy. If they manage to get that better understanding of the car and they know what to work on, maybe they'll find this new philosophy working. But I know for McLaren this is not a place they want to be. They want to be competing further up the front and right now, they look like they're going to end up being a fairly midfield car.

15:27

Alfa Romeo are up next and they got some decent running time this year. And I'm so glad because testing last year was not great for them. They had a lot of reliability issues and this year it just seemed to be a lot smoother for them.

15:44

Both Guanyu and Valtteri managed to put in some really competitive times when they were doing performance runs but I definitely think we were looking at some glory laps there because somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Alfa Romeo competing in the top three when it comes to the Bahrain Grand Prix. But I mean, who knows? They might just prove me wrong.

16:06

In general, it seemed like the drivers were happy with the car and it didn’t look like it was a handful to manage on track but there were one or two issues that the team faced on day two and three of testing. But nothing as major or as frequently as they doing last year.

16:23

Day two, towards the end of the day saw, really right towards the end of that afternoon session, we saw Zhou Guanyu stop at the end of the pitlane and needing to be pushed back to the Alfa Romeo garage. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what happened there. Whether it was a hybrid issue, a gearbox issue. But they managed to get the car ready for the next session in the morning.

16:44

But day three was when the bigger issue came into play. Valtteri ended up stopping on track during the morning session. Alfa Romeo couldn’t really diagnose the issue on trackside so they’ve decided to send the PU back for investigation. It might be related to what happened to Guanyu, it might not. Honestly, I'm not sure.

17:05

But power unit issues cropping up this early on isn’t something that any team wants to hear about so hopefully it’s nothing serious. They are a Ferrari customer team but the reports coming out about the Ferrari engine is that they have managed to sort out the reliability gremlins from last year. So, hopefully, we’ll get some word back from Alfa Romeo on what happened there. But other than those niggles though, I think the car looks pretty strong and there seems to be good pace there and I really hope they've improved a little bit from last year.

: 17:42

Aston Martin were pulling the biggest headline this preseason and they absolutely deserved to. The start of the testing probably wasn’t the best, to be honest with you. I mean, first, we have the fact that Lance Stroll is currently injured after an accident on his bike whilst he was training so he wasn’t able to take part in preseason testing at all. So, Aston called on one of their reserve drivers to help them out and that was Felipe Drugovich.

18:14

Felipe took part in the very first session of testing. He left the pitlane in the car, turned right, drove a little further onwards… and then the car stops on track. Eventually, we find out it’s just an electrical issue and nothing too major but ten minutes into testing… to see your car stop on track, it probably didn’t fill Aston with a whole lot of hope at that point. The afternoon session that day was a bit of a slow start for the team as well. There was some work that needed to be done to the floor of the car after it broke during a practice pit stop.

18:51

But that was pretty much the end of the bad luck for Aston Martin because after that, they just seemed to be flying. The car looks like it’s improved so much since last year. The grip looks amazing, the car is just moving so much better on track. The race pace seems solid, Alonso did some race simulations and it looks like a really strong race car right now. There was a good consistent pace with the car and not a whole lot of tyre degradation that they needed to worry about.

19:25

Honestly, when I had heard the rumours about Aston being able to compete at the front this year, I’d brushed them off and hadn’t really believed them but after seeing them in testing, I think there’s a good chance that they could be towards the front. Toto thinks they might be competing for second during the first race of the season, Adrian Newey has said he thinks that Aston will be fighting with the top three teams. So it’s going to be really exciting to see what they can bring to the track at the Bahrain Grand Prix and they’re definitely the team of preseason testing for me.

: 20:00

I feel like Haas had a pretty lowkey time in testing. Which, don't get me wrong, I think the team were probably thankful for given everything that happened with them last year. Nothing spectacular for me but I don’t think they’re going to be starting off on the back foot either. There were definitely some good lap times from both of the drivers but I do think that some of those have probably come from glory runs. No real reliability issues for them though and I think they managed to get through their testing programme with very little problems, if any at all.

20:35

The entire team seems pretty happy with the car though and there were a lot of smiles on faces in the garage, which we don't always see a lot of from Haas. Nico Hulkenberg has said the team knows the weakness in the car, they know what they need to focus on and what they need to do to improve. So, whilst they might not be stealing any headlines, Haas seem to be pretty content with how things are going and there are no signs of panic within the team which is always good to see.

21:03

One thing I did notice on the first day of testing for them though was the amount of lockups that both Nico and Kevin were getting. All the cars got lockups during testing, don't get me wrong, especially when they were at certain corners. But it just seemed to be a really consistent issue with the Haas. They were locking up in places that other drivers weren't necessarily locking up in.

21:28

And with Nico I thought maybe it's just because he's not been in the car recently. But when Kevin got in the car and we were still seeing it, it seemed like it was more of a car issue. It might not be, I might be wrong. It might just be because of how stiff that car is running but if it is to do with the car, hopefully it's one of those issues that Haas knows about and are working on.

21:49

Onto the AlphaTari who were actually the team that managed to get the most amount of laps in. They totalled 456 laps over the three days of testing which is pretty impressive to me. So, reliability is definitely not something that they need to worry about. But, one again, this looked like another car that didn’t seem to want to listen to the drivers very well.

22:16

The AlphaTauri technical director did say that they were getting some unexpected results. So, I don’t think they’re getting the exact correlation from the wind tunnel to the experiments that they were running on track. And they were also one of the teams that looked like they were facing a little porpoising as well. I don’t know with them guys. I don’t think that AlphaTauri did anything amazing on track per say. I think they had some glory runs in that might have made the laptimes look a bit better. But they had done the same last year. Had topped, I think, day one of the timesheets in testing and then ended up in ninth in the constructors'.

22:55

Look, there might be a small step forward from last year but I just don’t think it’ll be anything huge. Not anything massive. They're not leapfrogging any teams the way Aston Martin seem to be doing right now. At least from the looks of it, reliability is one thing they’re not going to have to worry about for now.

23:15

And the final team we’ve got is Williams. They were the team with the second for the most laps completed, tallying a solid 439 laps. So, there was some good mileage for them. Compared to testing last year, Williams definitely had an easier time of it since their car wasn’t on fire which is always good to hear.

23:36

Definitely, a smoother running for them bar a little electrical problem they looked like they were having when they were running a quick safety check with Logan. But I think Williams are walking away fairly happy with everything that they’ve gathered from testing. Alex thinks the car is in a much better position compared to this time last year, which hopefully means that they’ve made some progress over the last few months. I’m not sure if that’s enough to pull them up from tenth in the constructors though but there is a good chance that they might be able to get their cars in the points more consistently than they could last year.

: 24:14

And those were how the teams seem to be doing at testing! There's only so much information we can actually glean from the three days but right now, I think Red Bull are the clear front runners. I'm not sure whether they're going to be as dominant as they are last season. Because they obviously are facing a penalty with their wind tunnel time and I don't know what upgrade packages the other teams have planned right now. But definitely for the first couple of races, they are going to be ahead of the game.

24:47

Without a doubt, Aston Martin look like they are the most improved team as of testing. I can't tell where they're going to fall in the pecking order. I feel, from testing at least, that they're at least going to be best of the rest. I can't figure out whether they'll do better that Mercedes or even Ferrari. I know there's been some debate with Ferrari and Aston just because the Aston race pace with low tyre deg. Ferrari are obviously suffering from tyre deg.

25:16

And then with Mercedes, I think it's really going to depend on how much they can exploit out of their car and whether they can get on top of the balance issues they're currently having.

25:26

But it is all to play for and we're not going to get a great idea on where all the teams are falling until quali on Saturday and lights out on Sunday. Oh, that makes me so excited to say! Lights out on Sunday. And it's only a few days away, so we don't even have to wat that much longer.

25:46

I'm going to be so interested in seeing which teams are holding back a lot and whether we've got anymore surprises over the race weekend. I'm going to be discussing everything to do with the Bahrain Grand Prix next Tuesday. So, if you're just as interested as me in what's going on, make sure you subscribe to this podcast.

26:15

Thank you so much and diolch yn fawr for listening. Make sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter @stewards_office to keep up to date with F1 news. And I’ll see you guys the next time you’re summoned to the Steward’s Office.