Who’s quick? That’s what everyone wants to know. Pretty much everyone also says, though, that it’s impossible to tell. Not only are the normal vagaries of testing at play. The wind and heat in Bahrain is adding to the confusion.
Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez said: “The track is changing so much from one hour to the next one so it’s difficult to make any predictions.” Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz added: “It is very difficult to take conclusions in Bahrain even when you are testing things that you want to make conclusions from, because the track keeps changing and evolving every half an hour.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said: “It is impossible to tell. What you can say is that it’s only going to be next Saturday (in qualifying) you’ll get the first snap shot, when the fuel comes out, people run as close to the weight limit as they can. I don’t think Mercedes have shown their hand yet. Ferrari look the form team. Hopefully we can be in there as well. It looks like McLaren have a strong car. Alpine have a strong car.”
Mercedes - and their driver George Russell - have also said Ferrari look in the best shape is far. Sainz isn’t falling for it. “It is typical Mercedes,” he said, “typical George - hype up the others and then come to the first race and blow the competition away.
"If it was the first season they did it I would maybe believe them, but they have done it for five, six years now and they keep surprising us in the first race. So as you can imagine I don’t believe much. Already in GPS we can see what they are doing and, yeah… I am not going to say much.”
