Bahrain Tests 2 – The Summary of the Four Days

As for the Jerez tests, Motors Inside offers you a numerical summary of the second testing session in Bahrain. These numbers are a compilation of data from the tests and do not reflect what the future hierarchy will be, at the dawn of a season marked by major regulatory changes.

To know the details of the four test days, find our summaries:

– Première journée

– Deuxième journée

– Troisième journée

– Quatrième journée

The ranking of the best laps by driver:

As usual during winter testing sessions, lap times should be taken with caution. However, there are still four strong men after this second testing session in Bahrain, the Williams drivers – Massa and Bottas, and the Mercedes drivers – Hamilton and Rosberg.

These four drivers were the only ones to clock a lap under 1:34, with Felipe Massa being the fastest with a time of 1:33.258, just a whisker ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s best time. However, the Brazilian set his time on new super soft tires – like Rosberg – while Hamilton recorded his time on worn soft tires and Bottas on new soft tires.

Once again, the Red Bull and Lotus drivers are lagging behind in terms of lap times due to reliability issues.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by the drivers:

For track attendance, the accolade goes to Valtteri Bottas driving the Williams, with the Finn covering 236 laps. He quite significantly outpaced Sergio Pérez (Sahara Force India, 213 laps) and his teammate Felipe Massa (202 laps). Once again, Mercedes secures the top spots in this ranking.

Kevin Magnussen is not left behind either, the rookie was able to do many laps in Bahrain, unlike his teammate Jenson Button who is found at the bottom of the standings. The Briton is accompanied by Red Bull drivers – Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo – as well as Lotus drivers – Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado – whose tests were plagued with numerous problems.

**The number of laps completed by the teams:**

Regarding the teams, it’s the same observation, with the cars powered by a Mercedes Turbo V6 leading the way. However, teams equipped with a Ferrari engine are not left behind, as shown by the 3rd place of the Sauber F1 team. Williams was the most present on track in Bahrain, conducting several race simulations for a total of nearly 2400 kilometers in just 4 days.

Across all the tests, Mercedes is the team that covered the most kilometers, ahead of Williams, Ferrari, and McLaren. The only satisfaction for Renault engines comes from Caterham, which covered almost 11 Grand Prix distances during the 12 days of testing.

*: As a reminder, Lotus did not run at Jerez

The number of laps completed by the motorcyclists:

No surprise among the engine manufacturers, with Mercedes once again dominating in terms of mileage covered, both in Bahrain and overall in the tests. The star brand has nearly covered as many kilometers as Ferrari and Renault combined over the entire winter testing period.