Barcelona Shakedown Test And Russia

The first pre-season Formula 1 shakedown test took place from Wednesday to Friday this week at Spain’s Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, although the results must always be taken with a significant pinch of salt as teams often hide the true pace of their new cars and focus mainly on reliability. The use of differing tyre compounds also muddies the waters still further, making direct comparisons of only limited value, but for the record it was Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton who set the fastest time of the test just ahead of his new team-mate George Russell.

On a far more serious note, the dreadful events involving Russia and Ukraine, which had begun on Thursday, quickly made sport feel very unimportant and a decision was taken yesterday not to hold this year’s Russian Grand Prix scheduled for 25 September “in the current circumstances”, if leaving the slightest possibility that it might still happen, however unlikely that may be. There were also serious implications for the Russian sponsored Haas F1 team, as detailed below.

Unlike the usual format of pre-season testing, there was no live TV coverage, no public access to the timing system and no fans were allowed to attend. However, with the new regulations having heightened interest in how the 2022 cars might perform, there were at least regular updates provided by the limited media present and by the individual teams.

On the opening day McLaren’s Lando Norris had set the fastest lap time, a 1m19.568s, although significantly this was almost three seconds slower than Hamilton’s pole position time for Mercedes at last May’s Spanish Grand Prix weekend on the same, if now slightly altered circuit. Just behind Norris on the timesheets were Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz for Ferrari, Russell and Hamilton plus Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel. Despite the introduction of the new regulations and with revised power units running on more sustainable E10 rather than E5 fuel, everyone’s reliability proved really impressive apart from Alfa Romeo who suffered from a few minor technical glitches and a further bonus was that there were no ontrack stoppages to interrupt the day’s running.

On Thursday it was Leclerc who topped the timesheets with a 1m19.689s as the young Monégasque driver completed a further 79 laps, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo the best of the rest ahead of Russell, Sainz and Vettel. The morning action was briefly interrupted when Sergio Pérez’s Red Bull car ground to a halt at the exit of Turn 13 and had to be recovered to their pit garages on the back of a lorry. Fortunately the team quickly resolved the gearbox issue which had caused the stoppage. In mid-afternoon there were further red flags when the Haas car of Nikita Mazepin stopped at Turn 9 due to a damaged fuel pump.

Due to the worsening situation in Ukraine, arrangements were swiftly made for the Formula 1 team principals and representatives of both the FIA and Formula One Management to meet on Thursday evening and a decision was taken for now at least to cancel the 2022 Russian Grand Prix, with a related announcement made yesterday afternoon. The official statement explained “It is impossible to hold the Russian Grand Prix in the current circumstances”, thereby stopping short of a definite cancellation, although it seems unlikely that the event will be resurrected in the short term. The statement continued “The FIA Formula 1 World Championship visits countries all over the world with a positive vision to unite people, bringing nations together. We are watching the developments in Ukraine with sadness and shock and hope for a swift and peaceful resolution to the present situation.” Turkey may prove to be a ready replacement for the scheduled round at the Sochi Autodrom if needed, but further news on this front is awaited. Yesterday the football governing body UEFA also decided to strip St Petersburg of the Champions League final due to take place there at the end of May, transferring the game to Paris.

These days four time champion Vettel is clearly happy to take a very public stance on environmental and other issues beyond F1 and he had already revealed on Thursday that, even if the Russian race were still to take place, he would not be competing. The German driver expressed his feelings strongly “I think it’s wrong to race in Russia. I’m sorry for the people, innocent people who are losing their lives, getting killed for stupid reasons under a very strange and mad leadership.”

Meanwhile, the American owned Haas team, which is based in the UK’s Banbury, has the Russian company Uralkali as its title sponsor and displays the name prominently on its cars as well as the red, white and blue colours of the Russian flag. However, Haas announced on Thursday evening that for yesterday’s final day of testing it would be running its car with just a plain white livery, although the Russian driver Nikita Mazepin would still be driving as planned before handing over to Mick Schumacher. Uralkali stickers and Russian flag colours were also hastily removed from the pit garages and the large race transporters. A further announcement about Haas’ team partner agreements is due to follow.

Turning back to the ontrack action, there was further good news for Russell yesterday as the new Mercedes driver went quickest in the morning session with a best time of 1m19.233s, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen, Vettel and Leclerc completing the leading quartet. Unfortunately though there were five red flag stoppages along the way due to incidents involving Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, Gasly, Vettel and two for Alfa Romeo’s Chinese newcomer Guanyu Zhou.

During the lunchbreak water tankers soaked the track to enable a subsequent Pirelli wet tyre test, but when conditions were dry again Hamilton put in a late charge to set the fastest time of the test (a 1m.19.138s) just ahead of his team-mate Russell and the Red Bull duo. To their rear Aston Martin was buoyed by Vettel ending up fifth quickest ahead of Leclerc and Sainz for Ferrari.

After the teams have returned to their respective bases to work further on their new cars they will all then relocate to Bahrain in the Middle East for the second and final pre-season three day test starting on 11 March. The opening Grand Prix of the year will then follow at the same venue just one week later on 20 March.