Mercedes made its best trackside impression yet in Formula 1 testing as its car seemed to come alive with a mix of upgrades and improved understanding.
The W17 was there or thereabouts last week, but on Wednesday it was more emphatically strong: looking really sharp on turn-in at Turn 10, consistent through the corner, and good traction on exit.
It was also metronomic on the nine-lap run we saw George Russell do in the evening, hitting its marks every time. How much fuel load played into it is hard to say but with Isack Hadjar running in the Red Bull at the same time, on the same tyre, there was an imperfect comparison possible and the Mercedes fared very well.
Elsewhere around the track the car gave the same message: super repeatable and consistent.
It rotates well, gets through the downshifts where the drivers want to, and gets the rotation into the corner. In addition to better traction the car pulls nice and smooth out of the slow corners - which suggests it is in a good place with driveability between the turbocharger and the power deployment of the MGU-K.
Unequivocally, the Mercedes looked the best car on Wednesday – although not perfect, as Russell’s lock-up and big bail-out at Turn 10 on another run attested!
Red Bull’s day was tougher. With Hadjar - and no disrespect to him - it is inevitably a less accurate read on the car’s traits than when Max Verstappen is at the wheel, and Hadjar was further compromised by some limited mileage, so the shorter runs we did see him complete were fine but unremarkable. The car’s core strengths are still present: sharp turn-in, good and aggressive down the gears, but with a little more rear instability for Hadjar.
McLaren made a better step, although it was working from a slightly lower base. It has a bit of understeer, but its drivers can attack the corners pretty well and Oscar Piastri seemed to have his smoothest day so far in terms of looking more at one with the car. The final car in the top four - the Ferrari - still has a hint of rear sliding but we didn’t see a huge amount of it trackside during our excursions.
In the midfield, though, one team did make a strong impression: Alpine.
You could call it a ‘Diet Mercedes’ in that the car is not quite as quick, but it's really consistent. And that's what you're looking for: drivers who can drive consistently, they're not getting caught out, they're not having to hang back a little bit. Franco Colapinto was in the car and able to be very, very consistent – but what was really impressive is the turn-in phase. It had that edge of grip that it didn’t last week sometimes. It was responding, stopping and rotating well. When things did go wrong, it was just that drivers went in a little bit hot.
Some other cars in the midfield are a little way off that. Up at Turn 4, Racing Bulls had a few good laps, but then they leaned on it a tiny bit more and one one occasion this led to a huge lock-up. It looks the least improved from last week – maybe with the exception of the Cadillac, which has still got the least downforce of any of the cars and is giving its drivers a big workout behind the wheel.
There is a lot of steering input. It's all controllable, it's just a car that doesn't have the grip. And a lot of locking up as well, which just fits with less downforce.
The Audi looks better. It’s made good steps, although it still has the capacity to surprise the driver. Maybe one lap in three it moves around a little too much – but Gabriel Bortoleto’s starting to look more comfortable in it after finding last week a little tricky. It still sounds rough, noticeably rougher than any of the other power units apart from the Honda, which is a league of its own. But this is a team gently trending in the right direction.
from The Race https://ift.tt/8e2Utaj
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