F1 Test 2023 Bahrain, Day 2: Fernando Alonso continues ‘on the podium’

Day 1 of Test F1 2023 Bahrain and Fernando Alonso finishes second; Test Day 2, and the Asturian driver finished third. The Asturian pilot remains on the ‘virtual’ podium in the preseason, a position that, despite not being able to confirm performance that is good enough to be in the battle for victory or the real podium, is indeed a sign of good work done.

Alonso was able to drive the entire day behind the wheel of the Aston Martin AMR23 today, as the team decided to do so while trying to find out if Lance Stroll would be available to compete in next week’s Bahrain GP. It seems complicated that this is going to be the case, and for this reason Felipe Drugovich will be back on track tomorrow with the British car.

Fernando has remained in the top five positions throughout the day. He finished the morning session in third position and repeated this same result in the afternoon. In total, Alonso completed no less than 130 laps without any kind of mechanical problem and in a consistent way, collecting data and riding non-stop, which is the most important thing.

“It’s been a good day for us, in which we’ve done a lot of laps, just what a new car needs,” said Alonso. We’ve had a very tight schedule and we’ve tried a lot of different things. After a long winter, it’s good to be driving strong from the start and there’s no better training than driving an F1 car.”

“Now I feel more fit for next week, which will be my first race with Aston Martin. I have another half day tomorrow, so we will use it to continue learning and collect as much data as possible,” he added.

The other Spaniard on the grid, Carlos Sainz, added 70 laps and was the leader of the morning session on this second day of preseason testing. The record of the man from Madrid could not even be surpassed by his partner, Charles Leclerc, who was the one who drove the Ferrari in the afternoon. The Maranello team’s single-seater left good feelings, with its 138 laps between its two drivers.

“Today was another positive day,” Sainz said. “Reliability was again very good and we were able to test all the set-ups we had set out to do. We continue to explore the limits of the car and find areas where we can gain performance. The main goal is to continue the good work tomorrow and prepare for next week.”

The surprise came from Guanyu Zhou, who took the lead half an hour from the end of the test day after fitting the C5 tyre, the softest of Pirelli’s, on his Alfa Romeo. Despite the fact that his record is not particularly reliable for this reason, there is no doubt that Alfa Romeo -sixth place last year- can take a step forward in 2023.

After Zhou, the best time of Max Verstappen was left, just 40 thousandths of a second behind the Chinese driver and half a second ahead of Alonso. The Red Bull will continue to be – except for surprise – the car to beat this season, and nobody dominates it like Verstappen. Checo Pérez, in his first contact with the track, finished fourteenth.

Between Alonso and Sainz, Nyck de Vries and Nico Hülkenberg finished fourth and fifth, at the wheel of their respective AlphaTauri and Haas F1 cars, very remarkable results for both.

It was not a particularly positive day for the Mercedes team, due to a hydraulic problem on the W14 that prevented George Russell (who got into the car in the afternoon) from going over 26 laps. They caused the only red flag of the day, which, on the other hand, highlights the reliability of the ten cars on the grid.

Results Day 2 F1 Test 2023 Bahrain

Tomorrow, Saturday, the third and last day of F1 2023 test practice will be held, following the same schedule as today (08:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.).

We will see Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz on the track again on the most important day of all, as the teams will unload their cars to go for times.