Gasly quickest as Bahrain F1 pre-season tests kick off

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Pierre Gasly was fastest yesterday on a busy and exciting first day of Formula 1 Aramco Pre-Season Testing 2022 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir. The AlphaTauri ace led the top flight’s superstar drivers out on BIC’s 5.412-kilometre track in a pair of eventful four-hour sessions.

Gasly posted the day’s overall best lap of one minute 33.902 seconds during the evening runs, held in cool, post-sunset conditions under BIC’s bright, stateof-the-art floodlights.

“It’s good to be finishing the day in P1,” said Gasly after the tests. “But we’re always asked at tests how we’re doing, and I think we’ve got to focus mainly on ourselves and our performance, not at the timing screens as, at the moment, it doesn’t mean much until we get to Quali next week.

“Of course, it’s always nice to be top of the rankings, but at the end of the day I know we’ve got some stuff to work on, so we can get more out of the car. Overall, it’s been a good day.” The Bahrain tests mark the final three days of on-track running ahead of the start of the 2022 FIA F1 World Championship, taking place next weekend at BIC in the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix from 18 to 20 March.

Bahrain's biggest and most-anticipated sporting and social event is set to be a oncein-a-lifetime occasion for motorsport, as it ushers in “A New Era” in F1 following the introduction of sweeping new regulations and the huge design evolution of the 2022 F1 cars. The teams’ challengers seen at BIC yesterday are already greatly different from those that appeared in Barcelona, Spain at the end of last month in F1’s first ontrack appearance of the season.

The teams have brought an array of upgrades to Bahrain to get the maximum data from their final preparations for the new championship campaign.

F1 Aramco Pre-season Testing 2022 continues in Sakhir today and tomorrow and both days are open to the public. The tests begin at 10am but BIC will be opening its doors from 12noon until 7pm when testing wraps up. There will be an hour-long break from 2pm to 3pm between the morning and afternoon sessions.

Those who had purchased their tickets to the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022 before 1 March have free access to the tests. For those without F1 tickets bought before 1 March, tickets to pre-season testing are available to purchase online at bahraingp. com, at the gate and at the BIC stand at City Centre Bahrain.

They are priced at BD5 per day for adults and BD2.5 for children aged three to 12 years old. Fans will be able to watch the tests from BIC’s Main Grandstand, which overlooks the F1 Pit Lane, the teams’ garages and the main straight. There is no seating allocation so fans are advised to get to BIC early to get the best seats.

A food vendor area will be available on site for all those attending testing. The tests are the first opportunity for F1 fans around the world to witness in person the new generation of F1 cars on track. Gasly set yesterday’s pace in his AlphaTauri AT03 challenger.

He was out for a full day’s running and was one of just three drivers to complete over 100 laps with 103. Testing was red flagged with less than 10 minutes to go last evening and action did not resume.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz finished as the second-fastest of the day in his Ferrari F1-75 with a quickest time of 1:34.359 and 52 laps completed in the afternoon session. Teammate Charles Leclerc also had a positive first day, topping the morning timesheet which was good enough for third overall with a 1:34.531 lap in 64 laps of work.

Lance Stroll was classified fourth on the combined times with a best lap of 1:34.736 behind the wheel of his Aston Martin AMR22. He was on duty in the evening in place of teammate Sebastian Vettel, who tested in the morning. Alexander Albon followed for Williams with a 1:35.070 lap in his FW44 car. He also ran for the whole day and had completed 104 laps. Lando Norris was sixth for McLaren with a best time of 1:35.356 with 50 laps in the team’s MCL36.

Valtteri Bottas was seventh on the timesheet in the Alfa Romeo C42 car with a best of 1:35.495 in the evening after taking over for rookie teammate Guanyu Zhou, while Vettel completed the top eight overall for the day with his best lap of 1:35.706.

Rounding off the timesheet for the day were George Russell (1:35.941) in ninth for Mercedes, Sergio Perez (1:35.977) 10th for Red Bull, Lewis Hamilton (1:36.365) 11th in the other Mercedes F1 W13, Fernando Alonso (1:36.745) in 12th for Alpine, and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon (1:36.768), Zhou (1:37.164) and Haas’ Pietro Fittipaldi (1:37.422) in 13th to 15th.

Haas were the only team not to take part in the morning session, after freight delays out of their control affected their operations, the team announced yesterday