By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) – Formula One champions McLaren remain the team to beat with Ferrari looking like their closest rivals and Williams much improved, the read-out from pre-season testing in Bahrain suggests.
Mercedes, with 18-year-old Italian rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli joining George Russell after seven-times champion Lewis Hamilton moved to Ferrari, may have made a step forward.
Red Bull, dominant in 2023 but third last season, were harder to judge but have work to do before the first race in Melbourne on March 16.
Mercedes did the most laps over the three days at Sakhir, a total of 458 equivalent to just over eight race distances, and looked stable.
Red Bull, with four-times champion Max Verstappen now partnered by New Zealander Liam Lawson in place of Sergio Perez, did the least — 304 laps.
“I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times,” commented technical director Pierre Wache.
“It is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.”
Formula One’s data indicated McLaren were quickest on low fuel by 0.21 of a second from Ferrari, with a slightly smaller advantage on race pace.
Red Bull were third on both measures with Mercedes fourth, but Russell was fastest on the final day.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, already the bookmakers’ title favourite, and Australian Oscar Piastri sounded positive about a balanced and quick car that impressed in race simulations.
“The car ran pretty much faultlessly, which was a solid place to be starting from,” said Piastri.
McLaren were also suspected of ‘sandbagging’, hiding their true pace by aborting fast laps.
At Ferrari, Hamilton appeared comfortable in the car but the Briton had to finish earlier than planned on Friday due to telemetry gremlins.
Williams, ninth of 10 teams last season, were fastest of all after Carlos Sainz did a low-fuel qualifying simulation and completed the fifth most mileage (395 laps) — more than McLaren (381) and Ferrari (382).
The data suggested they could be battling Renault-owned Alpine to be best of the rest outside the top four, with a question mark over Aston Martin.
Sainz’s Thursday lap of one minute 29.348 seconds was also quicker than Williams’ fastest time in qualifying in Bahrain last year and would have been good for second on that grid.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Williams could be ‘top five’ but Sainz laughed that off given the uncertainties of testing and cars running on various fuel loads.
“I don’t think we’ve done the necessary step to be fighting with the top teams this year,” he said. “I was trying to go quick, which in testing is not normally the case, and I’m sure the top teams are not trying yet.”
At the bottom, future Audi works team Sauber gave no hint of moving up the pecking order.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge)
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