Despite Ferrari hitting back on Day Two of testing, the consensus amongst Max Verstappen’s rivals is he’s the one to beat this season with Alex Albon joking, we hope, about a “25-second lead”.
Verstappen blitzed the competition on the opening day of pre-season testing at the Sakhir circuit as he finished 1.1s ahead of his nearest rival.
However, with the RB20 in Sergio Perez’s hands the following day, the car looked a little less certain with the Mexican driver 0.7s down on the day’s pace-setter, Carlos Sainz.
That, though, was almost reminiscent of last season when Verstappen dominated in the Red Bull while Perez was beatable.
It has Albon declaring the opening race of the championship, which takes place next Saturday in Bahrain, already belongs to Verstappen – and by some margin.
Speaking to F1TV, the Williams driver said: “I’m going to already hypothesise what is going to happen.
“Max is going to have a 25-second lead, he’s going to go for a pit stop at the end of the race and he’s going to go for it at the end and break the lap record!”
So that’s the maximum 26 points going Verstappen’s way next Saturday as he begins his title chase, seeking a fourth Drivers’ title on the trot.
Four times Eddie Jordan’s wild and wacky F1 predictions came true
McLaren boss warns of ominous ‘big step’ from title favourites Red Bull
Albon isn’t the only rival who feels Formula 1 could be in for another season of Verstappen dominance.
Even though Sainz topped the timesheet on Thursday, leading to some suggestions Ferrari could be in the mix, he reckons they need to be realistic when “you see what Red Bull has brought this year.
“I don’t know if it’s three-tenths, one-tenth, or half a second.
“It’s impossible to know right now with fuel loads and engine modes.
“But you can already see from the design it’s half a step ahead of the others, and they’ve had more time to develop it given the advantage they had last year.”
His team-mate Charles Leclerc also believes Red Bull are still up on the chasing pack, saying: “My initial feeling is that Red Bull unfortunately remains quite a bit ahead, they’ve done very impressive lap times.
0 comments
