The final three days of testing at Bahrain International Circuit produced plenty of data, much of which arguable backed up the view that there is little useful information to be gleaned from testing times.
Take the case of Mick Schumacher for Haas – the team that finished last in the championship last year with no points – setting the second-fastest time. Or what about the apparent lack of performance from Mercedes, who ended the test over a second off the fastest time?
While drawing up a specific ranking of all the teams based on their testing performance is always fraught with problems, putting the data in context can make it easier to gain a sense of the bigger picture.
Lap times
World champion Max Verstappen ending the test with the quickest time will hardly have surprised anyone. But as he acknowledged “no one gives full beans or goes to qualifying spec at testing, so we can’t read too much into the timing screens.”
Even so, the gap between him and the next-quickest car…