The Athletic

The Races

The Races on and Ferrari was the big talking point on the penultimate day of pre-season testing

in Bahrain with its flip-top rear wing.

So what's that design about and how strong

is it looking in terms of performance? I'm Ed Strawer and joining me to tell all is Scott Mitchell Mown.

Well, Scott, we're going to get on to the technical innovation in part two of the podcast. But first,

overall, where would you say Ferrari's shaking out in the competitive order?

Pretty well, I think, certainly looks unproblematic on track,

and we definitely couldn't say that for Ferrari in some of the previous pre-seasons

and tests we've gone through here in Bahrain,

where it's looked a little out of sorts,

the driver's body language just has been consistently a bit underwhelming and there's immediately been talk about,

you know, on the back foot, what the recovery is and so on. Actually, would say the Ferrari

looks almost every bit as good as the Mercedes can or the Red Bull can at its best.

I don't think it's quite as consistently strong as those cars,

but there's so much about it that you can just see is working and working well.

So it's got a very strong front end,

and when I was trackside today, the instability that I've seen sort of rear, with the rear sliding on corner entries, wasn't really there at turn 10 or turn 11.

There's a bit of sliding mid to exit now, and it's almost more when it's really layering in the power than it is how the car behaves dynamically through

the corner. So Hamilton seems a lot more comfortable in the car in that sense. But it's just

looking quite poised and purposeful. And as I say, that that's what the Mercedes, sorry,

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