Verstappen tops day 1 of testing

Even before lights out, the 2024 Formula 1 season has already made history being the first in history with no changes to driver personnel. These drivers are also gearing up for the longest F1 season in history. No driver changes, however, does not mean no influential changes, as Ayao Komatsu finds his feet in Haas’ managerial white and Ferrari’s former sporting director Laurent Meckies looks to fill the huge shoes of the legendary Franz Tost at the newly renamed Racing Bulls (formerly AlphaTauri).The first day of pre-season testing in Bahrain brought expectations of Haas and Williams potentially fighting to keep themselves out of the back end of the field to Abu Dhabi in December, as Komatsu shared expectations of Haas staying at the bottom of the standings and Williams experiencing two separate issues in the two sessions on the first day of testing. Williams’ boss, James Vowles, would later explain that the first was a fuel supply issue toward the end of the first session, before the Williams had to be brought back into the garage again later for a considerable amount of time pertaining to the drive shaft. While Max Verstappen and Red Bull came out guns blazing, with the Dutchman posting the fastest lap time of day one (1:31.344), Sergio Pérez couldn’t share in the joy as his first session of testing on day two was brought to a halt for roughly half an hour due to what appeared to be the overheating of his brakes. Red Bull may be looking at an even more dominant season in 2024, as Adrian Newey introduced a concept to the RB20 that Mercedes have worked to perfect over past seasons – the zeropod. While any deviation from an established design can be a hit-or-miss, the RB20 with zeropods and newly introduced cooling ducts appears to be performing well. Despite Verstappen seemingly fighting the RB20 in the first hour of testing on hard tyres, he was still able to improve on the official track record of 1:31.447 that has belonged to the current Aston Martin ambassador, Pedro de la Rosa, since 2005. By the time the morning session of day 2 of testing was brought to a premature halt – seemingly by a loose drain cover on the track – Leclerc was topping the time sheets with 1:31:790. Incidentally, Leclerc’s SF24 was also the unlucky one to suffer a knock to the underside of a piece of debris from the drain cover incident. The coverings subsequently came up at the Ferrari garage indicating major changes or repairs, likely to the car’s floor. – irene@republikein.com.na

Verstappen tops day 1 of testing

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Republikein 2025-04-07

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Verstappen tops day 1 of testing

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