Toto Wolff was left very impressed as Aston Martin managed to "gain two seconds in half a year when their car is half ours".
Mercedes were the losers as Fernando Alonso stuck his AMR23 on the third row of the grid in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Aston Martin threatened the Formula 1 status quo in pre-season testing and look ready to follow through with their threat to trouble the top teams.
Red Bull started the season as they would have hoped with Max Verstappen taking pole ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez. Ferrari locked out the second row of the grid as Charles Leclerc went marginally faster than Carlos Sainz.