Dutch Max Verstappen will be aiming for a third straight victory in the F1 World Championship, which starts at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix. His team, Red Bull, was also the team that won the Constructors’ Contest with Mexico’s Sergio Perez.

The 25-year-old had to wait for the last lap of the final race to overtake seven-time British world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) two years ago. The last World Cup was scored with overwhelming authority.

He broke the record for wins in the same season (15), winning with a 146-point advantage over Monaco’s Charles Leclerc (Ferrari). And with the ‘Czech’, who came third in this contest, he managed to give Red Bull the constructors’ longest winning streak of his championship. It was his winning streak for the last eight years, Mercedes.

‘Mad Max’ and Red Bull will be the pieces to win the World Cup Ferrari had to settle for both runners-up finishes, with 28-year-old Carlos Sainz being the team to take his first premier class victory last season (Silver, the British track that hosted its first race in 1950). At Stone) F1 History) wants to reclaim a championship it has not celebrated since 2007 when Finnish Kimi Raikkonen last won in a ‘Scuderia’.

Mercedes is at least eager to get back on trackhowever, given what was seen last Friday at pre-season testing at the Sakir circuit on the outskirts of the Bahraini capital Manama, the first training for the 23 races of the year starts this Friday. , Verstappen again entered as a big favourite.

Before the final World Cup, the young Dutch star and Red Bull announced they would continue with Honda engines for another three years before switching to Ford, extending their contractual union until at least 2026. The Austrian team is looking to repeat or even improve on its stellar four years (2010-13). In it he celebrated four ‘doublets’ (driver and constructor titles in the same year) led by German Sebastian Vettel. In the seat of his Martin Aston, who retired late last year, is Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who is experiencing his second youth at the age of 41.

Verstappen tops the timesheets in RB23 on day one of testing And he was second none other than China’s Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) time (completely unimportant). Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Mexican ‘Czech’ Perez, who has racked up his four wins and his 26 podiums in F1, finished his third and final day of pre-season testing last Saturday. I recorded the fastest lap on the day. Alonso, among those who left excited about his Martin, the new Aston with a Mercedes engine.

Double World Champion of Asturias – its new partner Canadian Lance Stroll Injured after falling off bike without riding AMR23 during preseason– He was just 29,000ths behind Verstappen on day one. And it showed good consistency during the race simulation. This is why some point to Aston Martin (last year’s seventh team) as a potential big revelation in the campaign.

Alonso, who has 32 F1 victories and 98 podiums, and Sainz, who has increased his honors draw list to 15, aside from winning at Silverstone, will have a new team manager. Madrid driver, Frenchman Frédéric Vasseur – matched with Leclerc at Sauber – joined Ferrari as a stand-in for Italian-Swiss Mattia his Binotto. Asturian genius, Luxembourg’s Mike Clack.

If Stroll doesn’t make it in time, Aston Martin has already announced that it will be Brazil’s Felipe Dolgovic.the F2 winner and tester for the team – who already drove it in last week’s test – will be in the green car this weekend.

Drugovich thus joins the three ‘official’ rookies of the season in Bahrain.: Dutchman Nick de Vries (Alpha Tauri) – he ran one race in 2022, but was ninth for Williams at Monza -; Australia’s Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and USA’s Logan Sargent (Williams).

Sargent serves as additional claim in US where F1 is clearly committed to its expansionand aside from the eponymous traditional Grand Prix (Austin, Texas) and the Miami (Florida) Grand Prix released last year. This season, the Grand Prix in Las Vegas (Nevada) debuted. Formerly the venue for the US Grand Prix, it will host his penultimate race of the World Cup, which will end in Abu Dhabi on November 26.

Including the Spanish GP, there will be a total of 23 tests (at the Barcelona circuit in Montmelo), 4 June. It took place at the Hermanos Rodriguez Autodrome in Mexico City on October 29th.

74th F1 World Championship Start in Bahrain. The country where Sainz finished second last year.Where Alonso won three times (in 2005 and 2006 campaigned for the respective titles, and in 2010); and where “Czech” celebrated the first of his four wins. At the end of 2020, when he “doubled” Sakhir to set up a complicated World Cup calendar due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Debuted in the F1 World Championship in 2004 and a year later, new Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa of Spain set a lap record on the 5,412-metre-long, 15-curve Baireini track. Starting Friday, they will be rolled with tires made from compounds C1 (hard, identifiable by white stripe), C2 (medium, yellow stripe) and C3 (soft, red).

Practice will be completed on Saturday, hours before qualifying. Who will order the starting grid for Sunday’s race? 57 laps to complete 308.2 kilometers.