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KEY MOMENTS
* The race had to be restarted after more than an hour’s delay for barrier
repairs following a massive accident for Haas driver Romain Grosjean, from
which he thankfully emerged with only minor injuries.
* The re-start rules allowed teams to make repairs and change tyres. Only
four drivers chose not to change tyres: Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas
(Mercedes), Daniel Ricciardo (Renault) and Lando Norris (McLaren).
* After the re-start (which counted from lap three) the top nine were all on
the medium tyre, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly the highest-placed driver on
hard in 10th.
* There was a safety car after the re-start. This had the effect of
lengthening the stints – also considering the relatively cool temperatures
of 25 degrees ambient and 26 degrees on track – by reducing thermal
degradation as well as wear.
* Hamilton won the race from pole with a two-stop strategy, re-starting on
the same P Zero Yellow medium tyres as he had on the original grid,
switching to used mediums once more after 19 laps, and finishing with a
22-lap stint on the P Zero White hard. He took the chequered flag under the
safety car.
* Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who finished second, adopted a different
strategy, using White hard new tyres for two middle stints before finishing
on used mediums. He was the only driver – apart from Haas’s Kevin Magnussen
– who changed tyres four times.
* The three compounds selected for this year were one step softer than those
seen in Bahrain last year, contributing to a higher than usual number of pit
stops.
HOW EACH TYRE PERFORMED
HARD C2: Used by all but six of the finishers for the final stint, showing
both pace and strength on the abrasive Bahrain asphalt. Gasly used two sets
of hards for every lap of the race apart from one, to finish sixth.
MEDIUM C3: Very much the compound of the day. Selected by most of the
drivers (the top 10 on the grid went through Q2 with this compound) for the
opening stint, with a good balance between performance and durability. Used
by Hamilton for more than half the race, with Verstappen taking a final set
of mediums 11 laps from the end to score the extra championship point for
fastest lap of the race.
SOFT C4: McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was the only driver to select the Red soft
for the original start and he was joined by AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat for
the second start. This performed well in the cool conditions, taking Sainz
to P3 before his first stop and P5 at the finish from 15th on the original
grid.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“First and obviously foremost, we’re just relieved that Romain Grosjean
seems to have only minor injuries after the massive accident on the opening
lap. Everything else that happened today is irrelevant in comparison, and it
speaks so much about modern safety standards that this accident was
survivable. In terms of the race, strategies were obviously influenced by
the lengthy interruptions, with the delayed race taking place later in the
evening. This meant that the soft tyre performed more strongly than
anticipated, as Carlos Sainz showed in his first stint after the re-start,
while the medium tyre stints could be extended too. This was demonstrated by
Hamilton, who completed two quite long stints on it before finishing on the
hard. Throughout the race, we saw a variety of different strategies, with
Gasly stopping twice for two sets of hard tyres on his way to P6, for
example. In Formula 2, tyre management was crucial, with the medium tyre
playing a key role for some drivers. Deletraz was the only driver to start
on medium before switching to hards, and he made this strategy work
perfectly, resulting in one of those fightbacks through the field that have
become a hallmark of Formula 2.” |
