Formula 1: The GOAT

”Hello, ladies and gentlemen, to the first of the three days of the pre-season test session here in the bright and hot Bahrain morning,” Will Buxton, the temporary commentator for the pre-season test session, said as the feed finally started being broadcast worldwide to the hungry F1 fans who had been starved of F1.

”I know it is morning, but the heat waves are already rising from the track. I’m sure drivers are thrilled to get into the car in this weather,” Alex Jacques, the second commentator for the session, said sarcastically as the feed showed the heat waves rising from the track’s tarmac in one of the Bahrain circuit’s chicanes.

The feed stayed there for a few seconds before it changed to showing Kimi Räikkönen’s garage as mechanics were still actively working on the car, while at the bottom right of the feed, there was a two-minute timer for when the session will be green-flagged, and anyone ready will be allowed to enter the track.

”Other than the heat worry for those who will be in the cars, the temperature is up exactly where the teams want it, but at the same time, this is the shortest pre-season testing we have ever had ahead of a season,” Alex Jacques said as the feed returned to the track.

”Here is the thing, this was supposed to be a carryover season,” Buxton said.

”Yeah,” Alex said with a chuckle before Buxton continued.

”And yet, the technical regulations changes between last year and this have actually been a huge headache for teams. We have seen a raft of changes. We had token changes, which we will talk about in a little bit, who’s done what and how, and which changes might actually be a little bit close to the knuckle in terms of what you are permitted to do under those token changes.

But there are a lot of differences to this year’s cars as opposed to last year’s car, not least down at McLaren, who have at least changed the engine supplier over the winter. So there’s an awful lot of data that needs to be accumulated in these three days and an awful lot of learning needs to be done, down from the six days last season, which we thought wasn’t enough last year.”

”And here we go, the off-season has nine seconds to run, and we are ready to get underway with the likes of Bottas in the Mercedes, Verstappen in the Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo with his first outing in the McLaren. And let’s put four hours on the board. Let’s look to the end of the pitlane, and we have a green light around the Bahrain International Circuit, and leading us into the track is Kimi Räikkönen, whose love of competing in F1 is undiluted.

And the first sight of the green Aston Martin with Sebastian Vettel in his new team, who is heading out onto the circuit with plenty of aero rigs, plenty of sensors, plenty of data to be accrued in the next four hours. No waiting around, the installation round is fully under...”

As Alex Jacques commented on the starting session, the feed changed to a camera angle on the pit exit showing Kimi Räikkönen entering the track, followed by a Ferrari, closely followed by the yellow AlphaTauri with Pierre Gasly chosen for this session, with Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin, and Max Verstappen in the Red Bull following closely behind them.

All the cars entering the track were carrying large aero rakes behind the front wheels and another one on the rear, with each team designing their own, so the designs were slightly different from one another, though where they were used was largely the same. All teams were now finally starting to gather data that they would use to see how much the on-track performance correlated with the simulations and the wind tunnel.

No matter how careful they are, the data from the wind tunnel and simulation never correlates as one-to-one in the first sessions, so they need it to be calibrated before they can all either breathe a sigh of relief if the correlation is close or start the debugging nightmare if what they are seeing in the simulation and wind tunnel is completely different from the data they are receiving from the sensors on the aero rakes.

”We are going to have to get used to this: Sebastian Vettel out of the red car of Ferrari into the green Aston Martin, looking to put last year fully behind him and looking to get back into the form we know he is capable of,” Alex Jacques said as the camera followed Sebastian Vettel’s green Aston Martin around the track.

Will Buxton immediately took over, continuing from that, ”That is going to be one of the big talking points of this season, the driver lineup across the field, but particularly Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri, who currently have three drivers in their lineup.

The two who will be participating in this testing will not be the same two who will be in the car by the fifth round, the Monaco Grand Prix. So for the two drivers, Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, even the pre-season testing is precious time to know the car better than their teammate to give them an advantage.”

”It is not really a situation Pierre Gasly would have imagined himself to be in, considering his last season’s performance, finishing tenth in the drivers’ standings and being one of five drivers to stand at the top of the podium, having won a race.

By mid-season last year, many were confident that he would be promoted to the main team at the end of the season based on how Albon performed, but Red Bull surprisingly went with a driver outside of their academy and left him in the sister team, now having to fight for his seat to not be replaced by a junior. What do you think?” Alex Jacques broke down the situation before asking to hear Buxton’s opinion.