“Sandbagging” speculation as Lewis Hamilton outpaces Max Verstappen in Bahrain
Which cars are "sandbagging" ahead of qualifying at the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix?
Lewis Hamilton’s impressive pace compared to Max Verstappen on Thursday in Bahrain comes amid a warning about “sandbagging”.
Hamilton topped the timesheets in a Mercedes 1-2 in the second practice session at the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen could only manage P6 in FP2 but the true potential of every car on the grid may still be a mystery, ahead of qualifying.
Verstappen was +0.477 off Hamilton’s top time of 1:30.374 - only slightly ahead of Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg.
Damon Hill reacted on Sky Sports: “The Red Bull is not one tenth quicker than the Haas!
“Exciting, fantastic. I do think there is something in this.
“I think you have to take a lot of fuel out for Max to be a lot quicker than the Mercedes.
“Everyone wants to show what they are capable of doing.
“They are all sandbagging a bit!
“I thought the Mercedes looked nice. It’s not jittering around. I think they’ve done some work on their set-up.”
Naomi Schiff added: “Is that realistic or not? We still don’t know.
“Toto Wolff used some colourful language in the team principals’ press conference to describe when things will be more realistic - and that’s in qualifying.
“But it’s already positive news. We saw in testing that Lewis had a strong race run and now we’ve seen him do a quick qualy run.
“It’s looking positive for Mercedes and also for Aston Martin.
“They were quickest on the mediums in FP1 and were best of the rest in FP2.”
Mercedes entered the first day of practice in Bahrain with George Russell warning that old ‘bouncing’ problems may be rearing their ugly head again in the new W15.
“That’s been their issue for the past two years,” Schiff said.
“Although they had a car with potential, when they ran it at the optimum window, it generated bouncing.
“It has become better, but it’s a lot more stable.
“That was the issue that Lando Norris had [in FP2].
“The car is nervous especially in these windy conditions.
“You want a car that is predictable, and “[Mercedes] seem to have one that is quite stable.”
Hill, who watched Hamilton top FP2 from inside the Mercedes hospitality, said: “They are all very calm about it. It’s lovely to see that name back up there.”
Schiff said about the unusual results on Thursday: “The pecking order is changing. The RBs are quick, Stake moved forward.
“It is tight and you have to get it right to make a difference.”
But the below-par performance of Red Bull in the new RB20 (Sergio Perez was 10th) was unexpectedly significant and raised questions about whether they are hiding their true performance until Friday.
Even if so, Mercedes’ optimistic day is a fair reflection of their improvement, Schiff believes.
“We’re not sure, we’re not 100% sure,” she said of every car’s true pace.
“But we can look at tendencies to see that there are teams who have taken a step forwards.
“And Mercedes are one of those.
“That, we can read into. Whether Red Bull are where they are, right now? We don’t know yet.”
Hill backed Hamilton and Russell.
“I’m going to put my money where my mouth is,” he said.
“That Mercedes looks good. There is something that I liked about how that car looked on track.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
