On 11th February, the AMR26 rolled out of the pit garage at the Bahrain International Circuit in the stunning fresh livery (see photos). Lance Stroll was behind the wheel for the first day of the first three-day test in Bahrain, getting the opportunity to familiarise himself further with the new car after driving only a handful of laps in Barcelona. He headed out on track in the morning and completed 36 laps across the day. Unfortunately, the Honda team detected a data anomaly with the power unit in the afternoon, which required further analysis and limited his running. All appeared to be operational the following day, as the team continued its testing programme, with Fernando Alonso taking the wheel of the AMR26 for his first outing in Bahrain. He logged valuable mileage across the day, completing 55 laps in the morning session and a further 43 in the afternoon. However, he was not happy about the car's performance, throwing his gloves down at one stage after getting out of the car. Lance was back behind the wheel of the AMR26 for all of Friday and the programme focused on aero mapping as well as low- and high-fuel runs and he completed a total of 72 laps during the day.
Summarising the testing and in speaking with members of the team, Aston Martin appear to be some 4 seconds off the pace of the leading cars, which have been Mercedes and Ferrari. Breaking that down over the lap using GPS data available to all teams, it seems about 1.5 seconds of it is from the engine and the rest from the car, which performs worse the slower the corner gets. Team representative, Pedro de la Rosa, who is taking some of the media relations activities off Adrian Newey, said "It's clear after the first week of the first pre-season test that we are behind schedule and not where we want to be. We had limited running in Barcelona and we ran into some issues on day one of the test this week. Fernando and Lance have logged some decent mileage over the last few days, but we are catching up and always learning about the new package."
Also, a few of the drivers declared their dislike of the new format, including Alonso and Verstappen. The new power units (no longer just engines) are at the heart of their concerns as the cars are energy starved - the electrical part now required to produce about half its total power and the various ways of recovering energy, so it can be deployed to maximum lap-time effect, are changing the traditional sense of what being a racing driver is about. That means the drivers cannot simply go as fast as they can at all times and not always be on the limit of grip. Verstappen voiced that the revised cars and engines had turned the highest level of motorsport into an exercise in "management" and if one cannot drive flat out then it’s just not Formula 1. Alonso said the team's chef could drive his car around, so far below the limit was he in the attempt to save electrical energy. This could be Alonso’s final season in F1 - he is 45 in July and out of contract at the end of the year. Spending it at the back of the grid is not what he was expecting.
There will be another 3 days of testing in Bahrain from 18th February and we can only hope that Adrian Newey and the team will be able to add more upgrades to the car and catch up on the testing that they were late starting with.