Welcome Driver!

The 2023 F1 season is officially underway! The teams and drivers got out on the track for the first Free Practice sessions of the year and we finally got a see a sneak peek of the cars’ true performance.

There were some definite confirmations of pace as well as some potential doubt creeping in on teams. We go through the results of FP1 and FP1 and out takeaways from the first day of the F1 season!

Once again, if you are enjoying our F1 content, please subscribe to the newsletter if you haven’t already. Also, please share it with someone you think would enjoy it our F1 content! We appreciate the support we have received so far and will continue to put out quality content on all things F1!

Onto the FP1 & FP2 results and our main takeaways heading into qualification and the race!

2023 Bahrain GP: Friday Practice

FP1 Results

Sergio Perez topped the charts in the first practice followed by Fernando Alonso in P2 and Max Verstappen in P3. It appears Aston Martin’s pace in testing as transferred over to the practice sessions as well. The AMR23 looked very competitive with Alonso at the wheel bringing high hopes for a team that had a lot of hype surrounding them in the offseason.

Verstappen had a tough practice session as Red Bull tested out a new front wing for the Dutchman. Verstappen said he was not familiar with the car after they had put the new wing on so ultimately the test failed. We saw this with a few other teams who were basically using FP1 as an additional testing session.

Lando Norris was able to finish 4th for McLaren but was 1.5s off the pace of the leader Perez. Charles Leclerc was right behind Norris in P5 with the other Aston Martin driver, Lance Stroll, following closely in P6. Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz had an off session for Ferrari finishing with the slowest lap time of all drivers. He also had a moment going into turn 9 where he went over a bounce and spun out into the runoff area.

The Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished P10 and P11 respectively in a relatively average session for the team. Lewis Hamilton was later quoted that Mercedes is a long way off from the leaders pace. Not encouraging news for a team looking to bounce back in the title fight.

Alpine was another team with a somewhat disappointing first practice session. Esteban Ocon finished in lowly P15 and Pierre Gasly fared even worse in P17. The car looked very rigid out on track and the drivers are still working out the kinks of the A523.

FP2 Results

More of the same at the top of the charts in the second practice session on Friday. This time it was Fernando Alonso who took P1 ahead of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez who were both about 0.170s behind the Aston Martin driver. This result was confirmation to us that Aston Martin will be very competitive come race day as the conditions during FP2 replicated those of which we will see during the race.

Verstappen was again quoted in FP2 saying the car was, “jumping around a lot more than testing.” Could this be some sign of frustration for the Red Bull team? Or were they just running more tests and come qualifying they will be ready? After the session Verstappen said that FP2 went a bit smoother than FP1.

Leclerc finished in P4 while Carlos Sainz had consecutive frustrating practice session finishing P15. He was not able to get much out of his soft tire runs and based on his performance he can’t be too happy with how free practice has gone for him so far.

Nico Hulkenberg had a strong soft lap finishing in P5 in FP2 bringing hope to the Haas team that they may be able to pull their way into the midfield fight. Stroll once again finished in P6. He is dealing with injured wrists and it was limiting him in some corners of the track. His engineer was trying to alter the way he was turning into Turn 1 & 2 but he responded saying he couldn’t change it because of his wrists. He was also seen struggling to get out of the car after the session.

Pierre Gasly bounced back finishing P7 after a rough FP1 outing for Alpine. His teammate finished in P11, also an improvement from FP1. Based on what we have seen from Alpine we think they have definitely been jumped by Aston Martin and may even be behind McLaren at this point.

Key Takeaways

Aston Martin’s Pace is Legit

If there were still any lingering questions over the AMR23’s pace compared to the top teams there shouldn’t be anymore. Aston’s Martin’s pace rivaled only Red Bull in the quali and race trims. Could it possibly be a Verstappen vs. Alonso world title race? That would be a fun watch as the drivers have always been supportive of each other.

Lance Stroll was also impressive after two hard-earned P6 finished. The Canadian driver is rumored to have broken his wrist in a training accident and had surgery so he could race. He endured some painful moments out there today but fortunately for Aston Martin he was still able to show pace.

We will see how it all stacks up tomorrow in quali when it all counts. For now, Aston Martin might be the surprise of the season that no one saw coming.

Some Red Bull Doubts?

For as dominant as Red Bull appeared to be in testing they had a bit of a frustrating day. While they were at the top of the charts both drivers said the car did not feel as good as it did during testing. What changed to make this happen? As mentioned earlier, Verstappen was testing out a new wing that ultimately did not work out. Could Red Bull have been running other tests that we don’t know about? Or maybe there is still work to be done on a car that many thought would be clear of everyone else.

We still expect Red Bull to be competing for the win come race day. We just don’t think it will be as convincing as we once thought. Coming off testing Red Bull seemed invincible and looked as if they were going to steamroll the grid for a second straight year. Now it looks like that may not be the case with Ferrari still seemingly holding back and Aston Martin showing everyone that they can compete with the top teams.

Mercedes Behind the Ball

Friday’s practice sessions also showed that Mercedes is once again behind the ball compared to other teams. Aston Martin may actually be ahead of them in terms of performance at the moment. Prior to the year, if anyone would have told us that Aston would be ahead of Mercedes I would have dismissed them as a loon. Now it looks as if Mercedes is on the back foot.

As mentioned above Hamilton said that Mercedes was a long way off and the gap to the top was larger than they were expecting. George Russell also asked his team to find more pace in the car before qualifying tomorrow. This does not come as welcomed news for a team who was looking to vault into competing with Red Bull on race day. Instead they may be competing with a surprising Aston Martin team.

Where Did Alpine Go?

We seriously do not know what is going on with Alpine at the moment. During testing we thought they were just doing their own thing and holding back. Now it looks as if they are legitimately off the pace. The A523 looks very stiff to drive and somewhat struggles through the corners at Bahrain.

The team that finished P4 last season was looking to improve into contention for race wins. It looks like they have actually taken a big step back. It is surprising that they may even be worse than McLaren, who has also had very frustrating testing and practice sessions.

Are Alpine continuing to hold pace their pace? At this point we think it is a little late to be doing that. It seems to us that they are a bit lost in terms of their performance and may be falling back to P6 if they can’t get their car up to speed.

Upcoming Posts & Reader Feedback

We will be back tomorrow with qualifying results and how things will stack up on race day.

If you like the post please subscribe to the newsletter. We publish multiple articles a week and will be doing in-depth breakdowns as the season moves along.

We are also posting content on Twitter (@TheApexF1news) and Instagram (@theapexf1news) if you are interested in following there as well. You can also follow the links in the footer to get to these pages.

Feel free to leave any comments or recommendations on topics you would like to be covered. Thanks for reading, we really appreciate the support!