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Mercedes driver
Nico Rosberg carried on where he had left off, following his pole position
and debut victory in China last week, by setting the fastest time of the day
during free practice in Bahrain. Rosberg set his fastest time of 1m32.816s
on the P Zero Yellow soft tyre during the second free practice session,
which was characterised by high track temperatures. The P Zero White medium
tyre has also been nominated for Bahrain.
The Sakhir circuit reverted to the original layout that had last been used
in 2009, before a longer loop was added for the 2010 race between turns four
and five. This gives the circuit a faster and more flowing configuration,
with 15 corners as opposed to 23, which puts the emphasis on traction as
well as the front-left tyre in particular.
A typical hallmark of Bahrain is the sand that blows onto the track from the
surrounding desert, and this was very much in evidence during the first free
practice session this morning: although to a lesser extent than many of the
teams had anticipated. The effect of the dust is to make the cars slide
more, which increases thermal degradation and slows down the lap time.
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton set a fastest time of 1m33.572s in the middle
of the hour and a half morning session, using the Pirelli P Zero White
medium tyres. The Force India team was the only team to use the P Zero
Yellow soft tyres in the morning, placing third with Paul di Resta and sixth
with Nico Hulkenberg.
Temperatures
climbed progressively during the day, with the second free practice session
in the afternoon starting with 31 degrees centigrade of ambient temperature
and 40 degrees track temperature. As the session went on the track
temperature fell again after reaching a peak, when Rosberg set his fastest
time. These are the conditions that are likely for qualifying and the race,
meaning that all the teams ran both compounds extensively during free
practice two in order to accumulate as much data as possible.
Williams driver Pastor Maldonado was the first to switch onto the P Zero
Yellow soft tyres, 20 minutes into the second session, followed
progressively by the other runners. With half an hour to go, many teams
concentrated on long runs with high fuel: some splitting the work by running
one car on soft tyres and the other on medium tyres, to cover every
possibility.
Rosberg once again demonstrated his ability to get the most out of his P
Zero tyres at the peak of their working range, setting a fastest time that
was nearly half a second faster than the next-quickest driver, Red Bull’s
Mark Webber.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “The sand on the
track – a phenomenon that we are well aware of, following our tests in
Bahrain in the past – limited the useful running in the morning, but it was
a much busier session in the afternoon with all the teams running both
compounds in order to make up for any lost time earlier. The teams will all
have been looking closely at the effect of track temperature on performance,
which is going to form an integral part of their strategy for qualifying and
the race, as well as monitoring degradation. From what we can see so far the
pace of both compounds is around 0.6 seconds apart and degradation is in
line with expectations. But we still have a lot of data to go through
tonight before we can accurately predict how long the stints are likely to
be on each tyre, as this is the first time that we are here in race
conditions.”
Pirelli numbers of the day:
Sets used overall:
Medium 55
Soft 25
Intermediate 0
Wet 0
Highest number of laps per compound:
Medium 15
Soft 16
Intermediate 0
Wet 0
Pirelli fact of the day:
Hot races and fast circuits may appear to push the P Zero tyres to their
limits, but the tyres are actually subjected to much greater loads during
laboratory testing. The tyres are accelerated up to 450kph, submitted to
vertical forces in excess of 1000 kilograms, heated up to 150 degrees
centigrade and fired into kerbs at 260kph. These energy loads are all around
four times greater than what can be realistically expected, and the tyres
are
subjected to them for up to 20 times longer than they would normally. |
