Should Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin really be a secret favorite to win the first Formula 1 race of the 2023 season in Bahrain? The Spaniard was able to set the absolute best time in the second free practice, but the analysis of the long runs also shows: Alonso is at least a very good candidate for the podium on Sunday.
In his ten-minute long run on the soft tires, Alonso was just three hundredths of a second per lap slower than Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who was able to drive an average of 1:37.220 – also on softs – and was therefore the fastest driver in the field with a lot of fuel was.
At the beginning of the stint, the Spaniard was sometimes significantly faster than Verstappen, but Alonso seems to have put too much strain on his tires at the beginning, which is why he loses more and more time to Verstappen towards the end of the stint. The Dutchman had no problems at all with tire degradation.
Ferrari and Mercedes relegated
The rest of the world follows at a great distance. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez loses five tenths per lap, followed by the two Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who fall an average of seven and a half and one second per lap respectively.
There is no trace of Mercedes at the top. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton lined up in the midfield for the fuel-heavy runs behind Alpine and Lance Stroll in the other Aston Martin. Stroll was even on the mediums, everyone else before that on softs. However, it’s quite possible that the top three teams – yes, Red Bull too – haven’t laid all their cards on the table yet.
It was noticeable that Verstappen and Perez could not keep up with the top speed on the main straight of Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin in their long run laps. In the previous qualifying laps, however, Verstappen was the fastest driver on the straights with a top speed of 323 km/h. It is possible that the engine was turned down again in the racing simulation.
Why to count on Ferrari in qualifying
At Ferrari, the old picture from last year also seems to be showing: very competitive for one lap, but rather lagging behind over a race distance with a lot of weight. Although Leclerc was only fourth in the final count of the second practice session, four and a half tenths behind Alonso, the Monegasque’s time could not have been so bad.
After all, after the qualifying simulations, the drivers go into the pits to fill up the car for the long runs. There are usually eight minutes between entering the pit lane, pushing the car into the garage, filling up the tank and driving out at the pit lane exit so that the tank is full to the brim. Leclerc only needed a little over six minutes.
The fact that his long run was still not competitive suggests that Leclerc could still have been on the long run with full tanks. As a result, the Monegasse would not have been completely empty in its qualifying simulation, which makes the gap of four and a half tenths acceptable.
If the theory is not correct, it would be a bad sign for Ferrari, because then the Scuderia would be slow with little fuel and also in the racing simulation, although you weren’t even fully tanked.
Where has Alfa Romeo’s pace gone?
Behind Red Bull, Aston Martin and Ferrari, Alpine and Mercedes follow at a little more than a second per lap. Actually, the Alfa Romeo team was also present in the front midfield during the test drives, but it seems that the strong performance of a week ago cannot be repeated.
With an average time loss of 1.4 seconds to Max Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas ranks behind the five teams already mentioned. His teammate Guanyu Zhou had even bigger problems, but he was one of the few riders on the medium tire in the long run. On average, however, the Chinese loses over 2.1 seconds to the top.
In general, it has been shown that the soft tire performs much better than the other two tires. In one lap, the delta between soft and medium could be one second, and even with a lot of weight you should still calculate with seven tenths, because the tire wear of the soft tire is still limited even towards the end of a stint.
Williams, Haas, AlphaTauri, McLaren: Who brings up the rear?
In the rear midfield there are indications of a close battle between the remaining four teams. Haas can convince with the qualifying pace, but with a lot of weight the VF-23 doesn’t seem to do so well. Only Williams seems to have even worse race pace, although the Grove team is not that easy to read.
Because purely on average, Alexander Albon is in third place in the long runs! However, the Thai was only in the pits for a relatively short time, which suggests that the Williams FW45 was not fully fueled. The two McLaren drivers also did not complete the long run with full tanks.
Lando Norris loses an average of a second to Verstappen, but the Brit also spent just over six minutes in the pits to refuel. The real gap should therefore be larger, so that you should come out in the AlphaTauri region.
The Faenza team is the complete opposite of the Haas team. You’re at the back end of the field in the light weight rounds, but you can do better with heavy weight. Yuki Tsunoda missed an average of 1.6 seconds, which should put him on par with McLaren and ahead of Haas and Williams.
Conclusion: who is the favorite for the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix?
Red Bull will go into Sunday’s race with Max Verstappen as the favorite, but Aston Martin’s pace will have surprised some. Already after the test drives it was suspected that the team from Silverstone could possibly be ahead of Mercedes, but after the findings on Friday Ferrari should now be able to dress warmly.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz can be expected to set a quick lap in qualifying, but both Ferrari drivers will have to stretch to get onto the podium on race Sunday as Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso appear to have better race pace and Verstappen is ahead anyway.
Another question that needs to be clarified: Can Fernando Alonso even have a say in winning the race? Does Mercedes still have something up their sleeve or will they even be in midfield in 2023? And who will prevail at the back of midfield?