New cars, new rivalries. Will Ferrari join the fight against Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton? The questions surrounding Formula 1 will begin to find answers in the first Grand Prix of the season, in Bahrainfrom Friday to Sunday.
“It is a new era for our sport and anything can happen”, sums up reigning champion Max Verstappen. “Everything is so new that there are a lot of question marks before the first race of the season,” he notes.
In effect, the new technical regulations, which have completely changed the aerodynamics of the single-seaters, should reduce the differences in performance between the teams.
Nonetheless, the main protagonists are expected to be those of 2021: the 24-year-old Dutchman from Red Bull, winner with suspense and controversy, and the 37-year-old Briton from Mercedes, who continues to search for a record eight world titles.
TFerrari’s return is also expected, who wants to take advantage of the opportunity given by the changes to rediscover success, after two blank seasons.
Having already seen the pre-season training on the Bahraini circuit, the Scuderia seems to have the necessary means in this first test of the 23 of the calendar (a record).
‘Ferrari looks faster’
This is announced by Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen. “They are fast, you can see it clearly, both in the long runs and in the short ones”remarked the Dutchman last week. “Ferrari seems to be the fastest and maybe Red Bull, then we or McLaren, I don’t know”, estimated the Briton for his part.
Hamilton also warns: “At the moment I don’t think we can fight for victorybut the car has the potential to get there” in the future.
Realistic? Pessimistic? A strategy? “It’s typical of Mercedes to praise the others before crushing the competition in the first race,” said Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari), before implying that the GPS data showed that the German team has an ace up its sleeve.
Last year, Hamilton managed to win in Bahrain, after being dominated by Red Bull throughout the pre-season, and before fighting for the title until the last Grand Prix. But this time, the seven-time world champion assures that the situation is different in the first round of the calendar.
Verstappen shows his ambitions between euphemisms, knowing his winning temperament with a knife between his teeth. “The car looks good and the team is in a good position,” he comments. “The most important thing for us in Bahrain is to have a stable weekendwithout too many problems, and we hope to achieve a good number of points”.
For McLaren (which recovers the Australian Daniel Ricciardo, cured of COVID-19), Aston Martin (without the German Sebastian Vettel, positive and replaced by his compatriot Niko Hülkenberg), Alpine, AlphaTauri, Haas, Williams and Alfa Romeo, the positions do not They are also not insured.
The qualifying session at dusk on Saturday (10:00 from Ecuador) will give the first clues. The race, at the same time on Sunday, will confirm suspicions.
The GP will also be the opportunity to verify whether the change in regulation keeps its promises and allows cars to follow each other closer, and drivers to attack more easily.
Free practice on Friday could be disrupted by the strong winds that have been blowing over the island since Wednesday.
off the track, As every year since the 2011 Shia revolution in Bahrain, various NGOs and European parliamentarians take the floor against the violation of human rights in the kingdom and they ask for the release of the political prisoners, one of whom has written to Hamilton to thank him for his support.
In light of the sports sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, the inaction of the championship organizers is also denounced due to the military campaign in Yemen by several Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain) that host Formula 1 Grand Prix. (D)
Source: Eluniverso
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