The ridiculously talented combination of Max Verstappen driving a automotive designed by Adrian Newey must be stopped, man. They can’t just keep getting away with this. Having secured the 2023 championship with probably the most dominant season in F1 history, these psychopaths aren’t content with best, they need to just smash the competition to pieces. As a substitute of an evolutionary development of last 12 months’s RB19, the 2024 RB20 is a very different aerodynamic concept, and it already looks like Red Bull has gained more pace than the remainder of the grid. It’s only pre-season testing, and we will’t completely rule out other teams packing a couple of bags of sand into their cars, but all of us already know Max goes to win the championship this 12 months.
Search your feelings. it to be true.
The flying Dutchman showed up on Wednesday in Bahrain and totally waxed the ground with the competition. The Red Bull Racing driver not only turned a 1:31.344 lap (in comparison with Lando Norris’ best lap for McLaren at 1:32.484), but he also ran 143 laps of testing. Including Max’s outlier, the typical variety of laps run by each of the eighteen drivers who took part in day considered one of testing was just 68.6. Logan Sargeant managed just 21 laps within the Williams, while George Russell did second most at 122 laps for Mercedes. Max ran two and a half races price of laps, and still managed to kick within the fastest time of the day.
By the top of 2023 the McLaren and Mercedes teams were beginning to catch as much as Red Bull by way of single lap pace, however the RB19 was significantly easier on its tires than the competition, which made for significantly better race pace. If that continues to be the case in 2024, they may as well call Max the winner immediately. Fortunately for the fans who haven’t given up on F1, the McLaren, Ferrari, Visa Money App RB, Alpine, and Aston Martins all ended up inside a second of one another, so the race for second place ought to be pretty strong. Mercedes (we hope) never put in a push lap, as Russell’s best time was 2.765 seconds off Verstappen’s.
If there’s one thing we will count on in 2024, it’s Red Bull on the front and Haas on the back. It’ll take 24 races to find out where the opposite eight teams shake out. Is it price watching to search out out?
Testing continues in Bahrain through February 23, and the season opens with the primary round at the identical track with qualifying on March 1 and lights exit for the inaugural Grand Prix of the 2024 season on March 2. Congratulations, Max!
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
