Pre-season testing kicks off this morning at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain, and as the teams get ready to test out their new challengers, Alfa Romeo revealed exactly what their plans for the weekend are.
Back in February, the team revealed their new model for the season ahead – the C41 – at the Grand Theatre, in Poland’s capital city.
The C41, featuring a novel colour scheme, and designed by Alfa Romeo’s Centro Stile and features the now traditional red and white colours of the team, and represents an evolution of the C39 which competed in the 2020 season.
Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi make up the 2021 driver lineup, with Robert Kubica as reserve driver.
As the weekend rolls out, Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi will split the first day of action behind the wheel of the C41.
Then, Antonio is set to be in the car on Saturday, while on the final day, Kimi will jump in to bring proceedings to an end, meaning both drivers will get up to speed ahead of the first race of the season.
It’ll be a hectic weekend all around with new rules meaning some parts of the car had to be redesigned, and so there will be plenty of data to go through to make sure everyone is familiar with the new machine.
Alfa Romeo also spent two development tokens on some upgraded parts in 2021, which will need to be assessed.
There’s a new Ferrari power unit in the back of the C41 and new Pirelli tyres to test out – so plenty of changes to keep everyone on their toes.
Speaking about the priorities for the weekend, the team said; “Same as always, just in a more compact amount of time.
“Reliability will be key as nobody can afford to lose any time when there’s only three days of action before the first official practice of the season.
“Our engineers will be looking forward to the data to confirm that reality matches our expectations for the new car.
“Of course, as with every new car, it will be crucial to learn how everything works in terms of set-up – understanding the quirks of the C41 will be very important to give us a good baseline for the whole season.”
