The winners and losers of F1 pre-season testing

With Formula 1’s pre-season test running in Barcelona now complete and most of the teams back at their bases, attention is now turning to the 2019 season-opener in Australia in two weeks’ time.

This year’s pre-season running saw the majority of teams complete a significant amount of running in near-perfect conditions. Not a single drop of rain or, as seen in 2018, snow, hit the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya through the eight days of running, giving the field a good opportunity to dial in their new cars ahead of the start of the new season.

But who will have ended their pre-season running happy and who has work to do? Here is a look at our winners and losers. 

The Winners

Ferrari

Unsurprisingly, Ferrari tops the list of winners for pre-season 2019. Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc both spoke highly of the new SF90 car following its initial runs in the first week, with their initial good feelings only being confirmed with every lap they drove.

The SF90 was quick over a single lap and, more crucially, very strong over the long runs. Both Leclerc and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas completed race simulations during the afternoon of the penultimate day of running, and had the pair been in a head-to-head race, Leclerc would have won comfortably. It bodes very well for Ferrari heading into the new season.

But the team’s good form did not come without some warning signs. A number of reliability issues meant Ferrari completed almost 200 laps fewer than Mercedes, the most notable incident being a wheel rim failure for Vettel that sent him straight into the wall at Turn 3. An electrical issue also forced the team to end its running early on the final day, acting as a late final reminder.

The Ferrari is the quickest car right now – but is it reliable enough to win in Australia?

Mercedes

Mercedes may exit pre-season testing on the back foot, but things could have been much, much worse, with its turnaround through testing warranting its placing in the winners’ column.

Mercedes was miles off Ferrari’s race pace heading into the second week of testing as it encountered issues with front tyre graining. The problem was so severe that it forced the team to alter its strategy plans on its initial race simulations.

But the team’s decision to leave one-lap performance until the final day paid off as it made great strides over the long runs, drawing it to within reach of Ferrari ahead. The team is still on the back foot, but it could have been in a much worse position heading to Melbourne had it not been for the late progress it made.

Lewis Hamilton was able to lap just 0.003 seconds shy of Sebastian Vettel’s benchmark on the final day, which, while slightly deceptive as to the real gap to Ferrari, will instill some confidence at Brackley – as will the fact that it spent much of last year trailing Ferrari for pace, only to wrap up both championships with races to spare…

Most of the midfield

This may be a bit of a broad stroke, but the majority of the midfield runners will have left Barcelona pretty pleased with how their two weeks of running had gone.

While failing to make the kind of stride towards the leading trio of teams that some fantasists may have been expecting, Renault had a decent pre-season as only Mercedes and Ferrari completed more mileage.

Ferrari-powered teams Alfa Romeo and Haas also looked strong through testing. Trackside, both teams’ cars look really stable, particularly under braking. Alfa Romeo’s test running was particularly solid, with very few interruptions as Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi got up to speed.

Concerns will have been raised at Haas after a number of problems, especially in the first week – one joke doing the rounds was ‘name a more iconic duo than the Haas VF-19 and a flatbed recovery truck’ – but ended strongly.

McLaren and Toro Rosso both caught attention with some quick lap times, but are still understood to be just behind the aforementioned trio of midfield teams. That said, they look much closer than they were this time 12 months ago, which is encouraging.

The frantic midfield fight we had through 2018 was perhaps only a taster of what is to follow this year. It bodes very well indeed.

F1 fans

Formula 1 fans as a whole can be deemed winners at the end of testing as they enjoyed the deepest level of pre-season coverage yet.

F1 TV broadcast testing live for eight hours a day through the opening test, followed by a one-hour wrap-up show, while Sky Sports F1 carried the four-hour-long afternoon session live on each of these days.

In fact, the coverage was so good that often those in the media centre – intermittently without TV pictures – were left messaging those back in the UK asking what had happened on-track!

While testing is hardly made for broadcasting, it seemed to go down very well indeed with fans, many of whom were left disappointed that the same coverage was not in place for the second test.

Props must be given to F1 for putting everything in place, and hopefully, it’ll prompt a repeat in 2020.

The Losers

Red Bull

Maybe this is something of a surprise, given there was some anticipation of a possible doomsday scenario following Red Bull’s winter switch to Honda power. But Red Bull came out of testing still sitting firmly as the third-fastest team.

For Honda, it was a good pre-season. It managed plenty of laps without any major dramas, and while whispers about a vibration issue due to the tightly-packaged Red Bull RB15 car remains, a total of 833 laps – and a further 935 with Toro Rosso – give Honda the kind of platform heading into a season it has not enjoyed since returning in 2015.

But Red Bull itself has work to do. It lost running due to recurring issues, with two crashes for Pierre Gasly – the second a massive shunt at Turn 9 that was eerily identical to former Toro Rosso’s teammate Brendon Hartley’s last year – harming its preparations.

The majority of the final day was lost due to a gearbox issue, apparently stemming from Gasly’s crash, meaning the team completed the third-fewest number of laps. Only Racing Point and Williams – both of whom we will get to – were less productive than Red Bull.

The RB15 also lacks the pace of both Ferrari and Mercedes over long runs and single laps. The comparison mentioned earlier between Leclerc and Bottas can be extended to include Gasly, who was on a race simulation prior to his Turn 9 shunt.

And it makes for bad reading. The numbers suggest Gasly was between 15 and 20 seconds behind Leclerc after the end of his first stint alone before the crash.

If that rings true for the start of the season, Red Bull may be in for a long, lonely year…

Williams

The biggest loser of pre-season testing, Williams will want to try and put its start to 2019 firmly behind it and focus on getting as much done as possible to try and pick up some scraps if they’re offered in the early part of the season.

Recurring delays with the build of the FW42 car meant the team did not debut until the third day of pre-season, and entered the second week with just 88 laps completed. While the final four days of running were far more productive, the team was still limited as to how much it could do. Drivers Robert Kubica and George Russell were staying clear of the kerbs due to a lack of spare parts, meaning they could not properly push the car.

While Russell seemed fairly upbeat about things, looking to make the best of a bad situation, Kubica was blunter about things. He said he’s only managed 20 percent of what he had hoped heading into the new season and his return to grand prix racing, which hardly gives confidence for a better season ahead.

Team chiefs Claire Williams and Paddy Lowe have stressed there will be no single person held responsible for the delays, yet as they complete the inquest, surely some more concrete answers will need to be given. 

Racing Point

Racing Point is included in the losers column, but with an asterisk. We knew the team was going to be on the back foot following last year’s struggles, with the rescue of Force India by the Racing Point bosses coming too late to have a real impact on the car that would be rolled out for testing.

The team had a hard time with the RP19 car as it lost a lot of running, eventually only completing 58 laps more than the beleaguered Williams squad. Sergio Perez conceded he was uneasy about the limited running he’d had – only Kubica did fewer laps – and at a time when he needs to lead the team, it was a hardly ideal start for the Mexican.

However, both Perez and teammate Lance Stroll were satisfied with the baseline of the new car, and are safe in the knowledge that they will have a heavily-updated car for Melbourne in two weeks’ time. It may be a sluggish start to the year for the team, but there is a huge amount of potential for progress as the season wears on.