7 things you might have missed

On Tuesday, before the Bahrain Grand Prix, the drivers together with their engineering teams walked both layouts of the circuit. The little used Outer – in effect Turns Five-Eight of the Endurance layout – featured a few patches of fresh asphalt, fierce kerbs and some sizeable bumps. The considered opinion was that the titanium skid blocks under the car were going to get quite the workout this weekend.

While the Bahrain Outer, at 3.543 km isn’t the shortest circuit on which F1 races (Monaco) the limited number of corners ensured it would have the shortest lap time, beating Niki Lauda’s 58.79s pole from the 1974 French Grand Prix, set on the diminutive version of the Dijon-Prenois Circuit. Everyone was prepared for things to move quickly in Bahrain this weekend – but it still took a little mental adjustment. Lando was the second car on track at the start of FP1 and arrived back in the pitbox from his installation lap before his crew had stowed the tyre blankets. “Well… that happened fast,” said race engineer Will Joseph.

As a general rule, F1 races in warm weather. At the desert or equatorial races, as a general kindness (but also a practical performance enhancer), the team usually scatters radial drum fans around the garage to keep everyone cool. The upshot of moving the schedule back three hours compared to last weekend was that the midday heat was avoided, and the fans were removed, to cut down on unnecessary clutter. Because of that, the garages were counter-intuitively a little warmer this weekend – which prompted the race engineers to remind the drivers on occasion that the track might be a little cooler than they were expecting.

Who are the busiest people in an F1 garage? It varies from race to race, but this weekend the fabricators definitely put in a big shift. The Bahrain Outer’s bumps and kerbs ensured that virtually every run over the weekend resulted in the cars picking up the odd ding or scrape – or worse, as was the case with Lando’s floor, which required replacing during FP2. During the sessions they were busy with the quick-glue, applying fixes on the fly to the cars, including a repair to Carlos’ sidepod during qualifying; between the sessions, they were patching and bonding flat-out. The cars took a lot of abuse this weekend. 

Following a great deal of analysis overnight and some changes to the set-up, the drivers were much happier with their cars in FP3 compared to Friday – though Lando’s fifth place on the timesheet was considered a little flattering. While all the data pointed to us having a pace deficit to our main rivals, we ended practice confident that they would be fighting for a place in Q3 – that was far more optimistic than had been the case the previous evening.

There was a definite buzz of anticipation around the pitlane as the start of qualifying approached, with a wide expectation that chaos would descend in Q1, simply because there isn’t enough room to get 20 cars onto a 54s lap with a reasonable gaps. Added to that, the shortness of the lap allowed everyone more attempts – if they had the tyres. For us, however, Q1 proceeded smoothly, but things started to go wrong at the end of Q2, when Lando found himself on the wrong part of track at the wrong time, and was eliminated in 15th. Carlos sailed through the session but left himself out of position to get a tow in Q3, and could do no better than eighth.

Both cars home in the points, both cars making substantial gains on their starting positions, and yet the garage at packdown was distinctly muted. Andreas Seidl summed it up well in his post-race comments: “This morning we would’ve happily taken P4 and P10, but in the final analysis it is a disappointing outcome.” After a rocket first lap, Lando struggled for pace all through the race. Carlos, who likewise had a brilliant first lap, looked in with a good shout of a podium finish before the final Safety Car halted his charge, having held P3 comfortably through the first stint. There were a lot of shrugs post-race. Nothing went wrong, nothing failed, but somehow we leave Bahrain having had a bad day at the office. With minor adjustments in luck, it could have been quite different.