Sakhir, 23 Feb: Formula One champion Max Verstappen picked up where he left off last season by setting the fastest time in the first session of pre-season testing Thursday.
\nVerstappen lapped the Bahrain International Circuit nearly .3 seconds faster than Ferrari\u2019s Carlos Sainz.
\n\u201cPlenty of mileage and some good feedback,\u201d was the verdict from Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
\nAlex Albon was third fastest as Williams seemed to have improved its pace from last season, but George Russell was only fifth fastest for Mercedes behind Alfa Romeo\u2019s Zhou Guanyu.
\nThe session had barely started when Felipe Drugovich ground to a halt on his first run for Aston Martin with what team principal Mike Krack called an \u201celectric glitch.\u201d The session was red-flagged and Drugovich\u2019s car was taken away on a truck under a cover to prevent other teams from taking notes on its design. He was able to return to the track and was seventh fastest.
\nFormula Two champion Drugovich is stepping in for regular Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll after the Canadian hurt his wrist while cycling as part of his fitness training. The season begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix at the same track next week. \u201cFor precaution reasons we decided it\u2019s better to wait a bit (on Stroll\u2019s recovery) and be ready next week,\u201d Krack said.
\nWith few major rule changes for 2023, there are just three days of preseason testing, with one car per team. That rule is meant to cut costs but favors big teams who can do more advanced analysis off the track, argued Haas driver Kevin Magnussen. \u201cWe as small teams don\u2019t have the same tools that they have,\u201d he said.
\nThere were six days of tests last season after major changes including the return of \u201cground effect\u201d aerodynamics which caused many cars to suffer from uncontrollable bouncing and vibrations at high speed. Early indications from Thursday\u2019s test are that is much less of an issue, said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. His team was one of the worst affected last year.
\nOther than Aston Martin\u2019s early problems, most of the new cars seemed reliable on Thursday. The afternoon session started with Lewis Hamilton taking over from Russell for Mercedes, and Charles Leclerc step in for Sainz at Ferrari. American driver Logan Sargeant drove for Williams. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sakhir, 23 Feb: Formula One champion Max Verstappen picked up where he left off last season by setting the fastest time in the first session of pre-season testing Thursday. Verstappen lapped the Bahrain International Circuit nearly .3 seconds faster than Ferrari\u2019s Carlos Sainz. \u201cPlenty of mileage and some good feedback,\u201d was the verdict from Red […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-211586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}