Scuderia Ferrari all set for the start of the season…with seven GP distances under its belt 25.02.2023: Aramco Bahrain pre-season test Sakhir, Bahrain, day 3 Saturday, February 25th 2023 The three days of pre-season testing ended under floodlights at the Bahrain International Circuit. The last day of the test saw Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sa

Aramco Bahrain pre-season test
Sakhir, Bahrain, day 3
Saturday, February 25th 2023





The three days of pre-season testing ended under floodlights at the Bahrain International Circuit. The last day of the test saw Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz complete a total of 143 laps, or 774 kilometres, which makes the total distance covered by the team this week 417 laps, or 2,257 kilometres. The SF-23 will therefore tackle the first Grand Prix weekend of the season with over seven race distances already in the bag.



Morning. Charles was out on track shortly after 10am local time (8 CET) and for the majority of his session, he ran the C3 compound while continuing to work on car set-up. He actually started off on the harder C2 tyres, as well as doing a qualifying simulation on the C4 compound, with which he set his best time of 1’31”024. He completed 67 laps (363 km), bringing his three day total to 199 laps (1,077 km).



Afternoon. In the lunch break, the SF-23 was then configured for Carlos who spent the afternoon working first in qualifying trim before switching to race configuration. The Spaniard alternated between the C2 and C3 tyres, before switching to C4s, with which he set his best time of 1’31”036. In the final 90 minutes, Sainz completed a race simulation, bringing his total number of laps for the day to 76 (411 km) and for the whole test to 218 (1,180 km).

 

Charles Leclerc #16

“We have three very intensive days of testing behind us. The first day was all about running big scans and trying to understand how well our data matches what we predicted at the factory. What we learned is that there is quite a good correlation. We focused a lot on set-up work this week and made some good steps forward.



I also tried out some different driving styles to test what suits me best in this new car. We’ll be back next week for the opening race of the season and it will be interesting to see where all teams stand in relation to their closest competitors.”

 

Carlos Sainz #55


“We finished the test without any issues and completed the full run plan that we had for these three days. So first of all, thank you very much to the entire team here and in Maranello. Today we focused on both short and long runs to finish the assessment of some of the parameters that we wanted to test.


 Now we will focus on analysing the data, in order to arrive at the first GP of the year as well prepared as possible. I’m looking forward to racing here next week.”

 



Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal


"It was an intense three days of work for the whole team. We analysed the behaviour of various elements on the car and ticked off most of the items on our programme without paying attention either to lap times or to the others around us, but concentrating on ourselves.


The main objective was to accumulate as many kilometres as possible and we achieved that, but it is also true that you always want to do more and have more time. But that's how it is for everyone.


When we managed to get everything right the performance seemed to be there, but clearly we are still in the process of getting to know the car, so it is too early to make any judgements. The morale in the team is perfect and we are in great shape to start this long championship."


 
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