F1 test: Sainz, 2nd on first morning of test and Aston Martin has done it again

First 4 hours and a quarter of the morning session of the first day of preseason testing of Formula 1and Max Verstappen It started when it finished last year, leading the time table. The reigning world champion clocked 1’32″959 and gave a total of 71 turns at the wheel of a Red Bull RB19 which was revealed for the first time today at the track after the energy drink team only showed the decoration on an unreal model in their presentation.

The champion car presented a single-seater that is a pure evolution of its winning concept last year, but with a floor with many changes, with a surprising lateral part of the floor due to how much it is shortened from the center place of the car. A concept very different from others that accompany its famous clipped pontoons.

At the wheel of this car, Verstappen not only showed speed, he was also not seen to rebound on the straights, nor did he suffer any setbacks in reliability, completing 71 laps, less than one by Ferrari (2nd) and three by Carlos Sainz. less than Alex Albon (Williams), who rolled the most with 74 laps.

Carlos Sainz is second, 0″294 behind Max Verstappen’s best time, but if there’s one thing that doesn’t matter in the preseason, and even less so in the first morning session, it’s the times. The most important thing now Thursday is the shooting. as much as possible, detecting problems if they need to solve them as soon as possible and above all collect aerodynamic data to check the correlation of track data with simulation and wind tunnel to work in future vehicle development.

In that sense, it was a good morning for Ferrari, yes, showing some rebound in the straights and corners, something the Italian team should focus on to gain speed. That rebound was not seen in the Red Bull nor was it in a much improved Mercedes in this aspect where Russell, for the moment, finished 5th before handing the baton to Hamilton in the afternoon.

False alarm in Aston Martin

Alarms are turned on at the beginning of the tests. Only 8 minutes of the session had passed, when the Aston Martin of Felipe Drugovich stopped in the middle of the circuit, on its first turn on the track. After an hour was lost, he returned to the track with the problem fixed. It was a small thing, an electronic accident. Something that can happen in the early days due to car assembly. That took track time away from young Drugovich, who did just 3 laps with 2 1/2 hours to go in the morning, with more time in the garage after the setback was fixed. In the last two hours, the Aston Martin continued to drive, without repeating the problems, but did so without looking at the times or looking for a competitive time.

Drugovich’s task for Aston Martin is to advance all possible aerodynamic tasks of data collection and correlation of both with simulation and wind tunnel data to remove that task from Fernando Alonso and that of the Asturian, who will take this afternoon so that the car, I can drive focused on working on more relevant issues of adjustments and adjustment tests with his new car to begin to understand it.

false alarm for Aston Martin. SALonso has the green light to operate this afternoon with the new AMR23 that even the technical manager of red bullthe aerodynamics teacher of F1, Adrian Newley, He said it might come as a surprise that he could join the fight to be at the top this season. If so, there is still a long way to go. Alonso came down to work this Thursday afternoon from 1:15 pm to 5:30 pm The goal: shoot as much as possible to start drawing important conclusions for the whole.