What on earth happened on F1 testing day one

The first day of Formula One testing has concluded in Bahrain, with Max Verstappen topping the times with 142 laps completed.

The day lineups mainly alternated between the two teams two drivers, Red Bull and Mercedes, who ran Vertsappen and George Russell all day.

The morning session was quiet, with the teams focusing on aerodynamic testing using flow paint and rakes. The main talking point in the morning’s coverage was the Mercedes and its controversial front wing.

The top of the wing has a very beaded plane, which connects the wing’s upper fourth element to the nose. This, while legal, is still not seen in the spirit of the regulations.

Another talking point was the sudden trend of the nose cones becoming much fuller and wider compared to last year’s trend of slimmer, more tightly compact nose structures.

The only incident that took place in the four hours of the morning was Alex Albon mysteriously pulling over at the run-off inside turn one after the engine failed on the main straight. The mystery lies in the fact that neither engine smoke was produced nor was there a failure feature on the car’s dashboard.

Now moving on to the afternoon, which was more of the same, yet this time the session consisted of race running and qualifying running as it took place in the same conditions that both the race and qualifying will take place next week.

The only main highlight was the Williams of Logan Sargeant spinning at turn 10 but still managing to continue on.

The final placings.

While it’s wrong to take anything from today as it was mainly an in-set day for the teams to ensure their operational state was optimal and the car wasn’t showing anything extreme on the data readings,.

It is still not a surprise to see Red Bull at the top of the times, even if the new radical design of the RB20 is striking, with the design seemingly taking inspiration from last year’s failed Mercedes car. Mclaren is around, and we expect them to be in the front battle with Ferrari too.

Tomorrow will see a ramping up of pace, with teams starting to push their packages and find their limits.