The third pre-season test day of 2022 in Bahrain was the last opportunity for the teams and drivers to get everything ready before the start of the course. During the morning session, many were studying the behavior of single-seaters in long runs, something vital to know how to drive in the race, but some wanted to take their tests one step further.
Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly staged a beautiful duel more worthy of a grand prix than a test. This served to verify that the new 2022 cars have achieved the objective of being able to follow each other without suffering from dirty air.
The French AlphaTauri driver spoke about this action, and confirmed the good feelings that Charles Leclerc had already reported in Barcelona: “I was quite surprised to be fighting with Lewis [Hamilton] for a couple of laps. It has been entertaining, and also interesting for see how the cars follow each other, getting some data.
“I think it’s clearly better than last year, which makes me quite optimistic about the races this season,” explained Pierre Gasly. “We know we have a lot of work to do to improve the performance and balance of the car.”
The winner of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix gave more details of the behavior of the new cars, confirming that the drivers want to know how they are before facing the first race of the year: “You could see that Lewis was struggling too, they have duties to ahead to be fighting for victories”.
“It’s just testing, so it’s part of testing, it’s about exploring and seeing how to get the best out of the car,” he continued. “Competition-wise, it’s been some interesting twists, quite fun battles, and yes I think this should make all the racing more exciting for the spectators this season.”
Max Verstappen , the current world champion, was also testing to see if Formula 1 fulfilled its mission: “I think it’s better, at least better than last year, when if you got behind someone, suddenly you had understeer or a lot of oversteer. It was uncontrollable.”
“When I’m behind a car now, I do notice that I lose downforce, but that happens front and rear. That makes it more predictable and controllable for the drivers,” explained the defending champion.
It only remains to be seen if this will be the case at the Bahrain Grand Prix, where the 2022 season will kick off, although Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz were also able to savor for a few moments what Gasly held in a fight on the main straight of Sakhir.
