It is why Ferrari duo Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc coming out on top of the overall timing sheets over the course of this week’s Bahrain test has barely registered in conversations.
Sainz’s overall test-topping time of 1m29.921s, set on the second day, was around seven-tenths faster than the Red Bull benchmark of 1m30.679s set by Sergio Perez on the same afternoon.
However, no one is suggesting that it has any resemblance to the true picture of performance (even taking into account a 0.6s time difference in the tyre compounds they used).
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Indeed, the consensus among the paddock is that Red Bull is clearly going into next weekend’s F1 season opener as the team to beat.
What is not so sure, though, is exactly how big its advantage is, because there is another Sainz element to the Bahrain test that has offered F1 plenty of food for thought about where the competitive picture lies between his Ferrari team and Red Bull.
As teams crunched through the data, it was a race-sim run from Sainz on the second evening, running in similar but not identical conditions to Perez on the same programme, that offered some intrigue about just how good the new SF-24 may be.
Source: Autosport