Red Bull looked way off the pace after Friday practice in Bahrain, but as last weekend showed that doesn’t mean they should be discounted.
Teams’ 2024 performance in context
Last year the Bahrain Grand Prix was the first race of the season. Although Max Verstappen won the race with 25 seconds in hand over Red Bull’s closest rival, Ferrari produced a fractionally quicker lap during qualifying.
McLaren was only the fifth-fastest team at this race last year, underlining the progress they have made since then.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Teams’ progress vs 2024
No team has yet lapped quicker around Bahrain this weekend than they did at last year’s grand prix. McLaren have got closest of anyone, followed by Alpine, though they were the slowest team in this race last yera.
Only Aston Martin are further away from their 2024 pace than Red Bull. It was another difficult day for the Silverstone team, Fernando Alonso suffering a particularly worrying setback with his steering wheel in the second practice session.
Ferrari also lagged some way off their 2024 performance at this early stage. Their Friday running was partly taken up with testing the latest changes to their floor, and it will likely not be until after Saturday’s running that they fully understand whether the upgrade is the improvement they hoped it would be.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Teams’ 2024 and 2025 times
It’s not unusual for Red Bull to make a significant gain in performance between Friday and Saturday. That was the case at this track last year (see below) and at Suzuka last weekend, where they had almost half a second more up their sleeves compared to McLaren.
“We did a bit of a different approach to our Friday, so I think this gap is very big,” said Verstappen after practice.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
