Much will depend on the performance of the Ferrari engine Alfa Romeo runs, but the team has been consistently dropping backwards for the past few years and the faster times they set were likely done on low fuel.
9. Williams 🔵
Williams lost an entire day of testing due to the FW44 catching fire. Aside from that, the Williams seemed pretty reliable and Alex Albon in particular put in some solid long runs, but there was nothing to suggest especially strong pace from the FW44 in Bahrain.
8. Alpine 🔵
Alpine have arguably the most difficult performance level to judge, as they are the only squad running the Renault engine.
The car moved up the laptime rankings on the final day but, their package overall didn’t seem to have any standout performance strengths.
7. Aston Martin 🟢
The AMR 22 looked a little heavy at times in Bahrain, with drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll locking up fairly consistently.
Nothing in Bahrain suggested they have taken a significant step forward just yet.
6. Haas 🔴⚫
Haas flirted with the top of the timesheets a couple of times, but those runs were likely done to garner potential sponsor interest.
Still, they seems to have built a car which is capable of impressive one-lap pace, though reliability will be the main concern.
5. Alpha Tauri 🔵⚪
From the top of the midfield down, it is difficult to separate the teams.
Alpha Tauri, though, appears to be towards the higher end with the AT03 seeming to deliver solid performance across multiple run programs and on each compound of tyre.
4. McLaren 🟠
Front brake disk issues cost McLaren a significant amount of running this time around, and need to be resolves as quickly as possible.
The MCL36 has strong potential, but its reliability concerns drop it a touch below the front runners for now.
3. Mercedes
Though Mercedes almost always talk themselves down before showing excellent performance once the season starts, their complaints this time around seem genuine.
They seem capable of challenging for the podium right now, but are off the pace of the front two.
2. Ferrari 🔴
The F1-75 was very consistent on each tyre compound and demonstrated great pace on all six days of testing, with both drivers seeming assured behind the wheel.
If Ferrari can keep pace with developments, they could even challenge for the drivers’ championship.
1. Red Bull
Red Bull's RB18 no longer seems to suffer from any porpoising and looks glued to the tarmac through the corners, making it a very comfortable package for drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez to handle 🔵🟡🔴
They look like the team to beat this weekend.
Who do you think looks likely to start the season fastest, and which team might struggle most? 🤔
You can read the full analysis of how things are shaping up for #F1 in 2022 below 👇
In Kyiv, Gareth Bale swivelled rearward, propelled his left leg at a right-angle towards the heavens, and hit a shot into the top corner so unerring, so perfectly timed, so wrought with wrath, that it could have burnt a searing hole through a literal iron curtain ⚽
As football analysis and punditry have evolved in the information age, elite-level players are increasingly judged on their data, the numbers they produce both in front of goal and in their season-long all-around play, rather than on their moments of brilliance 📈
Liverpool and Carlo Ancelotti share plenty of history, and they will meet again in club football’s biggest game on Saturday night for the #UCL final 🔴⚪ #LFC#RMCF
We’ve explored the shared destiny of the club and the manager 👇🧵
Ancelotti was always supposed to end up living in Liverpool. Once he did, he found that he loved the coastline 🏖️
‘There’s a beautiful beach,' he said. ‘You can walk all the way to Formby on the coastal path. There are the Gormley statues, 100 of them. I really like it.'
Since the final he lost with AC Milan in Istanbul when Liverpool came from 3-0 down to win on penalties, Ancelotti's fate had been to end up in Liverpool 🔴
That night his and the Reds' respective destinies became one, bound by the twisted metaphysics of football.
Chelsea legend John Terry hits back at Rio Ferdinand after he named Virgil van Dijk and Jaap Stam ahead of him when ranking the best defenders in Premier League history ⚽️
Speaking to Van Dijk on his YouTube show ‘Between the Lines’, Ferdinand and the Dutchman discussed how the Liverpool star compares to the best centre-backs in the history of the league 🏆⚽️
Van Dijk put himself up there with the greats after transforming Liverpool’s fortunes since his £75million arrival from Southampton in 2018 ↗️
However, he has won just one Premier League, which pales into comparison to the likes of Ferdinand and Terry 🏆
Liverpool and Real Madrid will start the #UCL final with systems which look similar on paper, but which hide so much more beneath the surface 🔴⚪ #LFC#RMCF
We’ve analysed both sides' setups, to find out where the match could be won and lost 👇🧵
Both will ostensibly look the same, bar the colour of their kits — 22 men, each 11 arranged in a 4-3-3 in front of their respective goalkeeper.
But the differences between those 4-3-3s mean both sides are going to have plenty of opportunity to exploit one another's weaknesses ⚽
For Real, the key to their hybrid 4-3-3/4-4-2 is Federico Valverde 🇺🇾
He is asked to give width on the right wing when his team are in possession, while dropping deeper and narrower in defensive transitions to become an extra midfielder when Liverpool are have the ball.
Pierre Gasly, the French driver who will lead the Alpha Tauri team into the 2022 season when it begins in Bahrain on the weekend of 18 March, joined the F1 grid at 21 and has had to contend with significant strife in his time in the sport.
‘Over the last five years I think I’ve grown up a lot, from the different experiences I’ve had to go through, whether it was professionally or personally,’ Gasly exclusively told Metro.
Novak Djokovic has won his appeal against the Australian government's decision to cancel his visa 🎾🇷🇸
But how exactly did the Serb manage to stop his deportation? We took a look at the key issue the judge's decision hinged on 👇
The Serb’s visa was cancelled by the government upon arrival for this month’s Australian Open, after determining that the player’s recent Covid-19 infection did not sufficiently meet the requirements for him to be allowed to enter the country unvaccinated 💉
Djokovic spent the weekend in a hotel for visa detainees, while his lawyers put together a legal case designed to overturn the ruling and allow him to compete in the tournament which he has won on nine previous occasions.