F1 test, day 2: Alonso gets his doctorate in his Aston Martin

No conclusions can be drawn. No one knows where Aston Martin is this year. Arguably Fernando Alonso and the green team are taking the right steps to reach the first race of the year next week in Bahrain in the best possible shape. What is their desire then? We will have to wait to find out. All the teams have kept their cards and the only certainty at the moment seems to be a theoretical (and efficient) superiority of Red Bull, the best in the long-term rhythm, with less degradation from the others, as has become clear on the second day of testing F1 2023 preseason where the Chinese Zhou set the best time with his Alfa Romeo ahead of Verstappen (40 thousandths away) and Fernando Alonso (0″595).

The fact that Zhou led the day indicates how short the hours were. Alfa Romeo was one of the positive surprises of these tests, but the Chinese wanted to gain unreal muscle through a fast lap, called the ‘glory run’, putting the softest compound in the range of Pirelli (C5), which at The Bahrain GP next week is not among those chosen by Pirelli (they will be C1, C2 and C3, the hardest).

The most important thing in exams is to ride a lot and stick to the schedule. Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz achieved the same goal.

The man from Oviedo did a very thorough job. He drove all day and finished with a total of 130 laps. In the morning he did part of the aerodynamic work that had to be done the day before, to make up for the time lost the first day. Following this, he was able to focus on making changes to the car set-up to understand his car, taking advantage of the fact that the track conditions were very stable in the morning session. He also worked in these extreme heat conditions to study how to cool tires and their wear and tear. And in the afternoon, he focused on doing long runs with different compounds. In addition, they do not want to gain more muscle, preferring to always ride with the same fuel load and throughout the morning with the same average tire to get more accurate data. That is the main goal of Fernando and the team, and they are embroidering it.

Yes, Fernando had the third fastest time of the day and throughout the day he was among the best in terms of time, but that doesn’t mean anything. Yes, the fact that the times seem to come easily to this Aston Martin, without suffering. Also that they followed the program without suffering setbacks and unexpected events.

Carlos Sainz, the best in the morning

Carlos Sainz signed off with another great day behind his Ferrari SF23. The Madrid driver only raced in the morning, and taking advantage of the fact that the track temperature was more consistent than in the afternoon, he was able to test different settings to better understand the behavior of his SF23 and to get to Bahrain much better adapted to his car than the last course, wants to fight for everything.

“Quite happy with how we ran and the amount of testing we did these first few days. Exploring the limits of the set-up, trying to put the car in different places and learning a lot from it, which is a goal of team. last year, and at the moment I’m getting it. It’s like an evolution from last year, it’s almost the same in driving, there are no big changes in the concept” , comments Carlos, optimistic of the level he can show in the first appointment of course, before returning to his car this Saturday afternoon on the final day of testing.

However, the question is whether Ferrari can compete in the first race with Red Bull. Toto Wolff believes Red Bull and Ferrari are ahead. Others consider Red Bull to be at the front and then equality is supreme.

Logic says that Ferrari should rival those from Milton Keynes with a very fast car at a turn and they should put up a lot of war in qualifying, but in. like. further damage. That’s what’s distilled from the long run conducted this Friday by the red cars, with lower speeds than the Red Bull.

From there, there was the question of whether Mercedes would actually be the third team. The base from Brackley is better than last year with a W14 that no longer suffers from rebound, but this Friday was very nervous and saw Hamilton not very comfortable, suffering from many whiplashes. Wolff admitted that Red Bull and Ferrari were ahead and that his car had a clear lack of “rear grip” on Friday as the hot and windy conditions affected him more. But he remembered that his team was also hiding and they were preparing evolutions for the first part of the course.

So far, this Friday Mercedes did not look at the time. Hamilton finished 15th in the time he set in the morning and Russell, who gathered in the afternoon, was 13th. They worked in the shade. Last year they started from a worse base and ended up coming. Now, from a better starting point, they want to reach the top before it’s too late to fight for the title.