Report 4th day of 2022 Pre-season testing

Event: 2022 Pre-Season testing
Track: Bahrain International Circuit

It was hot and sunny in Bahrain, as the preparations for the 2022 season continue. The first day 1 of 3 pre-season testing days was driven today at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Previous Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was already at the circuit after the team announced earlier this week to fill the empty drivers seat after Nikita Mazepin got ousted. Magnussen was catching up with friends in the paddock this morning as the Haas wasn't seen out.

Daniel Ricciardo was meant to be driving for McLaren MCL36 today, but the Australian wasn't feeling well and stayed at the hotel. Lando Norris was is in the McLaren cockpit instead.

Morning test session - 4th day

Mercedes W13 font view during Bahrain test day one

On track, it has been all eyes on the new extreme sidepod design of the Mercedes W13. The car looked a lot different than last time we saw it in Barcelona and now had some very unusual looking sidepods.  big talking point in the paddock - and that is the Mercedes car. The team seem to have changed the design of their sidepods, with some new cooling inlets to boot. Have they struck gold on the design-front, or is this a testing red herring?

Vettel had been out for Aston Martin, and is sporting flow-vis paint on his rear wing. He leaded the timing sheets at early in the morning.

Until 10 o'clock there was no sign of McLaren just yet, but everyone else except the Haas had been out. McLaren were one of the teams to watch in Barcelona, along with Ferrari. But across the next three days, the true pecking order will start to emerge...

The Mercedes garage was high with activity, with a scrum of photographers all trying to get a closer look at those sidepods. "It's all about the sidepods, everyone is talking about how narrow it is - but the floor edge has changed as well," says Sam Collins, F1 Technical Analyst.

Half an hour into the morning session, and Leclerc is out on what looks like a timed run. Indeed he sets a 1m 37.017s to sit top as it stands. For reference, last year's pole was a 1m 28.997s set by Verstappen.

Mercedes W13 side view during Bahrain test day one

Ross Brawn, Managing Director-Motorsport, said: "It's impressive and this is what is the great thing about the innovation of Formula 1," on Mercedes' radical design concept. "I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion about it. For a set of rules that everyone said were too prescriptive, everyone has come up with very different things."

Hamilton's W13 was looking quite difficult to handle through the corners, which could be due to a heavy fuel load... Or it could be due to their brand new design concept. By comparison, the Red Bull RB18 was cornering much better at the moment as Perez continued to lay down the laps.

Leclerc was quickest in the Ferrari F1-75 with a time of 1:34.531 min on C3 tyres during the morning session.

Afternoon test session - 4th day

Pietro Fittipaldi, Haas VF-22

In the afternoon the temperature raised to 32ºC before the first cars drove out for the second four hours of testing. Pietro Fittipaldi was the driver that took out the Haas VF-22 with new livery out for testing this afternoon. At Alpine Fernando Alonso had taken over the car of Esteban Ocon fro a lot of laps of testing.

Valtteri Bottas was running a series of sensors on the Alfa Romeo C42, but those have now been removed and he sets off for another go. Alfa Romeo managed the least laps of any team in Barcelona, but so far today, Zhou had been round the track 54 times, nearly a full race distance - and Bottas had plenty of time to up that number.

The first red flag came out around 15:40 when a part of that aero rake mechanism actually came off Stroll's Aston Martin, so the session was red flagged while the marshals gather that piece of debris. George Russell took over the wheel from the much spoken Mercedes that Lewis Hamilton drove in the morning. One hour had already passed before Russell went out to for his first run.

With 24 minutes to go Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso had a small race and passed each other a few times to spice up the first day of testing and show racing is possible with the new cars.

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull) on the first day of testing at Bahrain

At Ferrari Carlos Sainz had take over testing from Leclerc, who drove this morning. Over halfway through the afternoon session the sun was noticeably lower in the sky. Most of the track was still bathed in sunshine though, and Sainz was on a quick run, improving to sixth. He is still one and a half seconds shy of his team mate's leading lap from the morning, but you sense plenty of drivers were waiting for the sun to go down and conditions to cool off before going for their hot laps.

Russell had a hard time in the Mercedes W13 to get round turn 10 and almost went wide on every lap, because couldn't slow down on time and made the hairpin. Mercedes sure looks like they have a lot of work on their hand to get out the full potential out of the new package.

Eight minutes before the end Perez had spun the Red Bull at turn 8 and had beached the RB18 and the session was not resumed.

Quickest Lap Times 4th day of testing

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