Next weekend, the F1 season will open in Bahrain. This week, teams are actively conducting pre-season testing in Bahrain to ensure they can make a difference in the opener. To the delight of Chinese fans, in the second day of pre-season testing on February 25, Beijing time, Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu scored the fastest lap of the day in 1:31.610.
Zhou Guanyu in pre-season testing
Zhou Guanyu aims to finish in the top six in the new season
The main purpose of F1's pre-season testing each season is to allow teams to verify whether the new car can be fully realized on the real track in terms of aerodynamics, powertrain performance, stability, etc., and then improve the tuning of the new car for the season. In other words, even if each team will deliberately hide some of its strength in the pre-season test, the test can still provide a glimpse of the potential strength of each team in the new season.
That's why, with just one week left before the 2023 season opener, Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu, who is competing for Alfa Romeo, made Chinese fans even more happy with a 0.040-second lap time for the second day of the test race with a time of 0.040 seconds ahead of defending champion Red Bull Racing driver Verstappen.
In fact, for F1 "sophomore" Zhou Guanyu, Bahrain, where the pre-season test of the 2023 season will be held, is definitely a blessing for him. Last season, Zhou Guanyu, who officially stepped into F1 for the first time, officially made his professional debut here and scored points for the first time, laying the foundation for the entire season.
Zhou Guanyu, who scored 6 points in his debut season, is also clearly looking forward to the new season. "I am confident that regrets can be turned into motivation and hope to reach the next level in the new season." Looking forward to the new season, Zhou Guanyu said: "I am looking forward to the new season, the goal is to finish in the top six, enter the third qualifying session more times, and take driving skills to the next level. ”
Ferrari undergoes pre-season testing
It is still difficult for the top three to "encircle and suppress" Red Bull
Although Zhou Guanyu and Alfa Romeo Racing performed well on the second day of pre-season testing, the overall performance so far in the test so far shows that Red Bull Racing still has the strongest quality in the first place.
Red Bull's new car, the RB19, is basically derived from last season's powerful RB18. In pre-season testing, defending champion Vitaspan was also familiar with the new car and did not show the slightest discomfort. It's not hard to imagine that as long as Red Bull don't have major problems themselves, they are likely to continue to lead the table in the new season.
Red Bull and Vitalspan's potential rivals have more or less exposed problems in pre-season testing.
As runners-up last season, Ferrari announced in pre-season testing that Inaki Rueda, who had been Ferrari's head of strategy for many years, stepped down and was replaced by 28-year-old Indian-Briton LaVerne Jane. At the same time, the wear and tear of Ferrari's racing tyres in the tests also seemed to exceed expectations. In summary, if Ferrari wants to catch up with Red Bull in the new season, it not only needs to ensure stability, but also game strategy is very critical. And these are precisely the crux of Ferrari's "tiger head" last season.
Mercedes AMG and Aston Martin, two equally favoured teams for the new season, are currently facing the same problem – how to unleash the full performance of the car. Mercedes AMG, despite the "black technology" of the whole body, their car still seems to have not completely overcome the "dolphin jump" problem in the test, and the performance of the car is more struggling; Aston Martin, on the other hand, is struggling with consistency, and they are the first team to suspend testing due to a system failure in this pre-season test.
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Huang Xiyin
Proofreading by Xu Heng