With a condensed pre-season testing schedule of three days – reduced from six last year – all 10 teams scrambled to make the most out of precious time on track to optimise their cars ahead of this weekend’s season opener in Bahrain. The Straits Times’ Ervin Ang picks out five key learning points from last weekend’s testing.

Red Bull still the team to beat

While most neutrals look forward to an intense title battle between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Red Bull appear to have the far superior machinery this season.

The Honda-powered team set the benchmark in testing with Mexican driver Sergio Perez topping the overall timesheets in 1min 30.305sec on a low-fuel run and they also looked quick on long-run race simulations. The new RB19 car has improved in balance and reliability – issues that plagued them early last season with Verstappen retiring twice in the first three races.

Expect the defending constructors’ champions to continue to be ahead of Ferrari – who were 205 points adrift last season – and for Verstappen to be in a league of his own once more.

Ferrari remain closest contenders

Last year, Leclerc led the drivers’ championship for the first five races after Ferrari – who last won the constructors in 2008 – looked to have developed a title-winning car at last. Yet it was Red Bull who pulled away with Verstappen winning nine of the last 11 races.

While Red Bull are still expected to dominate, Ferrari have fixed a big shortcoming from last season, the straight-line speed deficit to Red Bull, with a renewed set-up. This year’s new SF23 car crossed speed traps at 325kmph in testing, an improvement of 7kmph from last year.

New team principal Fred Vasseur, who was formerly at Alfa Romeo, remains quietly optimistic. He said: “The mood in the team is perfect and we are in a good shape to start the season.”

Return of Hamilton vs Alonso

Aston Martin, who finished seventh in the constructors last season, have emerged as the most talked-about team from testing. British reporter Ted Kravitz said: “I’m going to be slightly reticent and say that Aston Martin are third and Mercedes are fourth at the moment.”

The new AMR23 car, heralded as a big step forward by rivals and members of the paddock, could prove to be the machinery that revives an old rivalry between Fernando Alonso and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton. The duo were briefly teammates at McLaren in 2007 and famously fell out at the Hungarian Grand Prix after tensions over strategy calls boiled over.

Now with Aston Martin, two-time champion Alonso has impressed in testing with his new team by setting consistently quick times in the 1min 37sec range on high-fuel load, race simulation runs with the hardest C1 compound tyres.

McLaren’s struggles

While Aston Martin look to have pulled clear of the midfield pack, McLaren appear to be lagging behind. The Woking-based team have suffered reliability problems with the brake system and wheel brows, resulting in limited time on the track.

After three days of testing, McLaren only mustered 311 laps, the lowest amount and 42 laps fewer than second-from-bottom Alpine (353). They are also a whopping 145 laps behind Alpha Tauri (456) who completed the most laps. Traditionally, the number of testing laps completed paints an accurate picture of a team’s pace and reliability as data collection is prioritised over fastest laps.

It all points towards a long season for McLaren after British driver Lando Norris, who finished “best of the rest” in the championship last season with 122 points, reportedly punched a wall in frustration after the final day of testing.

Alpine masking their true pace

On paper, last season’s fourth-place finishers Alpine seem to have had an underwhelming testing. They were the slowest of the 10 teams, 2.457sec off the leaders and were the only team to go slower than in last year’s Bahrain test.

However, the French team ran extreme testing set-ups and never used softer tyre compounds or low-fuel loads which would enable them to go faster. As such, Alpine are thought to be “sandbagging”, a term used to describe teams lowering expectations to produce relatively greater-than-anticipated results.

With new recruit Pierre Gasly forming an all-French team with teammate Esteban Ocon, Alpine are expected to be regular Q3 contenders alongside potential dark horses Alfa Romeo, whose Chinese driver Zhou Guanyu topped Day 2’s timesheets.