The Bahrain International Circuit makes strategists work harder. With the current generation of cars and tyres, the default race at most tracks is a one-stopper, with the option of two for the brave or the desperate. Bahrain is a throwback: high tyre degradation keeps this race strictly in regulation two-stop territory – though this year the top six at the chequered flag also featured drivers that, post-restart, succeeded with both one and three. The greater the number of variables, the more permutations for the strategy team to ponder. Throw in a red flag, early and late Safety Cars, the rapidly cooling track, and it was a busy evening in Sakhir for the people crunching numbers.

Not that you would know it from the races ran by Carlos and Lando. On an evening of high drama, their progress through the field appeared… serene. Both enjoyed one of their more straightforward races of the season, able to maintain a comfortable gap over the cars they were racing and carrying a tyre advantage in the phases of the race where it was advantageous. After a poor qualifying session, these were excellent recovery drives. The 2020 midfield battle is intensely competitive – there haven’t been many weekends where the team has been free to run the race it wants, rather than that dictated by the actions of others.

The race in numbers

	Carlos Sainz	Lando Norris
Starting position	P15	P9
Restart grid position	P13	P7
End of lap one (restart)	P11	P6
Finishing position	P5	P4
Speed trap	333.8 km/h (quickest)	328.3 km/h (7th quickest)
First pit-stop*	24.511 (14th quickest of 38)	24.679 (20th)
Second pit-stop*	24.679 (31st)	24.666 (18th)
Fastest lap	Lap 46 1:33.411 (5th)	Lap 53 1:33.588 (7th)

*Excluding the red flag stoppage on Lap 1 

The tyres

The strategy… in theory

The abrasive surface, heavy braking and strong demands on traction make the Bahrain International Circuit one of the toughest on tyres, and one of the few where a two-stop race is the standard strategy. Last year almost the entire field made two stops – but only one driver (Carlos) used the Hard tyre. This prompted Pirelli to come down a compound for 2020. The race still looked like being a two-stopper, thought three was not beyond the realms of possibility. 

What actually happened

Lando started the race, like the rest of the top 10, on the set of used Medium tyres with which he had qualified. He made a good start from P9 but was squeezed in the first complex of corners and picked up front wing damage. How serious the damage was became moot when the red flag was thrown for Romain Grosjean’s crash. Like the rest of the field, Lando stopped in the pitlane where his crew were able to swap the front wing.

A new grid was made based on the order when the cars crossed the beacon at the Safety Car 2 line, promoting Lando to P7 for the restart. He passed Esteban Ocon for P6 on the restart lap, then gained P5 when Valtteri Bottas pitted with a puncture. He pitted from P5 on lap 18 for another set of used Medium tyres and emerged in P10. Over the next seven laps, he regained places when George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Carlos and Pierre Gasly all pitted, and passed Valtteri Bottas on track, resuming P5. The second round of pit-stops had him move up to P3 before his own stop on lap 38 for a new Hard tyre, which shook out to P6. He passed the one-stopping Gasly again on track for P5 on lap 44 and moved into his finishing position of P4 when Sergio Pérez retired on lap 54.

Carlos started on a Soft set of tyres and was the only driver to do so. He used the extra grip to make a good start and was up to P12 when the red flag came out. That translated into P13 on the reformed grid. He fitted another new Soft tyre for the restart and passed Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll to move up to P11 by the end of the lap, and into the points when Bottas pitted. On lap nine, he passed Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo to move into P8, and was up to P7 on lap 12, passing Leclerc. When the cascade started, he stayed out longer than his rivals and briefly moved up to P3, before his own pit-stop on lap 21, for a new Medium, dropped him to P11. That became P10 on lap 23 when Leclerc pitted, and P7 on lap 26, when Bottas pitted, and he passed Gasly and Ricciardo on track. He took P6 a lap later, passing Ocon, and stayed in P6 until the second round of stops. Carlos stopped on lap 40, and emerged in P8, but immediately passed Leclerc for P7. He caught and passed Gasly for P6 on lap 51, and completed his ten-place gain on lap 54 when Pérez retired.

The strategy… explained

The red flag had little effect on the race other than shortening it by two laps (the second formation lap counts as a race lap). Lando stuck with his used Medium tyre, Carlos took another new set of Soft tyres. The period behind the Safety Car following Stroll’s crash had some significance as it took the three-stop option off the table by effectively shortening the racing stints each tyre would have to complete.

Carlos’ race was always going to be hampered by both his lowly starting position, but he also had a problem. The Hard and Medium compound tyres were expected to be the favoured rubber for the race, and so everyone had three or four sets (in various permutations) of those available. Carlos, because of his brake failure in qualifying, had destroyed a set. “We lost a set of Mediums from qualifying – they were too damaged to use again, which was a shame because it meant we didn’t have that many tyres for the race,” says McLaren F1 Head of Strategy and Sporting Randy Singh. “Carlos had one Medium set and one Hard, and three new Softs. I think it’s obvious from everyone’s actions, people preferred the Medium and the Hard tyres over the Soft tyres. With the race being between a two- and a three-stop, we had to run at least one Soft tyre for Carlos.”

Carlos opted to do this at the start, when the extra grip from the Soft tyre would allow him to attack and, it was hoped, move through the field. His opening stint was more successful than imagined: he was able to make positional gains – but also make his Soft tyre last longer than the more durable Medium compounds of his rivals. The tyre performed slightly better than expected. “How is it I’m able to stay out longer than these guys?” he asked on the radio.

Carlos’ side of the garage considered an undercut to pass the Renault of Esteban Ocon, but when Ocon pitted ahead, he went long. While he would emerge behind both Renaults, in effect being undercut, he had built up a significant tyre delta and was able to use his fresher tyres, in his words, to ‘go hunting’ and pass everyone up to Lando. Before the second round of stops, he was catching Lando – but lost a little ground being passed by Alex Albon and Sergio Pérez who had already made their stops. When he emerged from his second stop, he had a good tyre delta on both of the Renaults, and simply needed a steady pace to catch and pass Gasly, and maintain a gap over a potential charge from Bottas.

Lando had a little less to do and described his race as “not boring – but relatively straightforward.” In the early stages he was able to build a gap to the cars behind, such that he could react to what they did without fear of an undercut, and was able to choose the timing of his pit-stop to emerge into favourable traffic conditions. “With Lando, we were able to stay out long enough to clear nearly all of the traffic, and knew the traffic that was still out was made up of cars he’d be able to fly past,” says Randy. “We knew we’d be behind Bottas – but we weren’t expecting to clear him during the first stint. Once we were past him, Lando was able to run his fastest race to the flag.”

As it transpired, both drivers were in a sufficiently comfortable position to go beyond the optimal lap for their second stops, extending the stint to guard against surprises. “For both cars, it wasn’t necessarily the quickest lap to pit on, but it was the best lap to pit,” says Randy. “Staying out longer guards against the risk of a Safety Car, and also builds a tyre delta.”

Lando’s ‘relatively straightforward’ evening was the polar opposite to that experienced by the strategists trackside and back at the McLaren Technology Centre. “It was an extremely busy race – but very interesting,” concludes Randy. “We don’t do many multi-stop races in this modern era of F1 and that itself is interesting, but when the degradation is high it adds an extra level of complexity to monitoring and tracking the race. There was a fair amount to deal with conceptually. We’ve had tough races with difficult weather conditions, Safety Cars and red flags but, in terms of pure strategy, this was the most challenging race of the year.”

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