We go again! We have a green light at the end of the pit lane, a queue of cars ready to head out, blue skies above and a tasty third and final day of F1’s sole preseason test has begun.
Just a reminder these three days of running for the teams are crucial preparation time ahead of free practice at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne on Friday, March 14.
Track running at Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir starts at 10am local time (7am GMT, 2am ET) and runs for four hours before lunchtime at 2pm local time (11am GMT, 6am ET).
The following hour is taken up by the day’s press conferences with selected drivers and team principals.
Then the afternoon session of four hours rounds off the day, beginning at 3pm local time (12pm GMT, 7am ET) before the chequered flag comes down at 7pm local time (4pm GMT, 11am ET).
The test days will be used primarily to help teams, drivers and engineers understand their new cars in real life, rather than the numerous computer simulations they would have been running for months on end.
But there is also the opportunity to run as many tires, setup changes, new parts and potential future upgrades as possible.
There will be long spells fixing broken new cars and other obstacles preventing them from racking up the lap count — the real currency of these testing days — and no one will truly know each other’s pace until qualifying in Melbourne.
But getting ready for that opening race weekend in Australia will owe much to how well these three days have gone in Sakhir.
