21.4.13

After Shanghai the F1 Circus travelled the 4,200 miles west into the politically and climatically hot Kingdom of Bahrain and as with Shanghai to race on another Hermann Tilke designed circuit, Sakhir, for the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix.

A big change on tyre options since China was announced with Pirelli bringing hard and medium compounds. doubtless reflecting on high degradation rates experienced in Shanghai with soft compounds.

Early clues to form were quickly dropped by Ferrari, bagging best two times in the Friday first practice, Massa fractionally outpacing Alonso. With past wins and front row grid positions for both Alonso and Massa at Sakhir, the Ferraris have in the past performed well at this circuit. In the second Friday practice session however Kimi and the Red Bulls elbowed their way to the fore on the combined time sheets. The debate over Perez’s qualification to be a Woking employee seemed unlikely to recede any time soon, with Friday performance times outside the top ten and lagging behind his team mate JB.

Saturday dawned somewhat duller than usual in the Kingdom, but Alonso quickly brightened up the mood in the Ferrari camp with fastest time in the morning free practice session and an eventual third place on the grid. Massa lined up alongside Fernando on the second row after the shake out from grid penalties imposed on Guttierrez, Hamilton and Weber for various misdemeanours, both here and at Shanghai. Ferrari also broke ranks amongst the leading teams by shoeing Massa on the hard compound tyre and his team mate on mediums. Most teams struggled to distinguish any clear pace advantage between the two compounds and so by using both sets, Ferrari might have gained a better understanding of tyre degradation particularly on the harder compound tyre. At the end of Q3 Rosberg put in a stunning lap of 1.32.687 to take pole position ahead of a hard charging Vettel. The two Force Indias also were well on the pace to occupy Row 3.

Race day arrived as did even higher temperatures and stronger winds. both big factors in influencing tyre performance. A clean start was made by all and heart stoppingly close racing ensued at the front during the opening laps between Rosberg, Alonso and Vettel.

Any tifosi present though were soon wringing their hands in despair as first Massa pitted with a puncture on only Lap 4, followed by his team mate on Lap 7 with a DRS flap stubbornly jammed open. The high tech solution deployed in the form of a burly mechanic’s blow with a fist to close and hopefully re set the flap unsurprisingly didn’t work. It then seems inconceivable the team considered the DRS problem might have sorted itself after such a crude remedy. Surprise surprise DRS failed a second time on the Alonso car a lap later, triggering yet another unscheduled pit stop. This left the hapless Spaniard without any DRS for the remainder of the race. Why a decision was taken to risk using DRS again after such a crude fix was curious in the least, and interestingly Alonso’s tardiness in joining the usual post - race TV jamboree left few doubts as to his take on the issue. Massa fared little better after seeing a second tyre splitting from its wall and parting company, prompting another unscheduled pit stop and if that wasn’t enough having to run for most of the distance with a damaged front wing.

As the race progressed beyond its opening phase, Vettel in the leading Red Bull scampered away and took complete control of proceedings. Behind however the unfolding race soon became anything but dull or predictable. Perez, who rightly in the run up to the race, had been issued with numerous ‘hurry up’ calls from his team principals, suddenly decided to sit up and take note. Around half distance he could be seen jousting aggressively with Rosberg, on a slide back from pole, Grosjean, Massa and soon more topically his team mate JB. At Lap 32 Perez was clearly on a mission to displace his team mate at all cost. He ran his charge into the back of the sister McLaren causing front wing damage and a potential puncture for his McLaren buddy. Eventually after further wheel banging and off road excursions the two McLaren’s were split up by Grosjean who was on a charge and fast rising through the field to an eventual podium place. Raikkonen in the sister Lotus also had a great race, arm wrestling his way from 8th on the grid to second on the podium.

Photographers could have been forgiven for going home early with the podium make up being an exact re-run of 2012. Di Resta then grabbed an impressive 4th place, followed by Hamilton, who unlike his team mate gained ground in the race after a debatable grid penalty, the recalcitrant Perez, Webber, Alonso, Rosberg and the final points place going to a bruised and battered JB.

This was a ‘day at the races’ as Webber retorted afterwards and it certainly was a gripping race with great overtaking and wheel to wheel combats going on everywhere in the shadow of race winner Vettel.

Ferrari fans must have been left wondering why Alonso’s DRS system was considered serviceable after its first failure early on in the race. Alonso’s skill and the pace, even with DRS disabled, still allowed passes in circuit areas not usually renowned for overtaking. All this follows a similar curious decision taken in Malaysia not to pit stop Alonso immediately following heavy front wing damage at the start. The result being that on the very next lap and after a slight nudge with Webber the damage consigned the wing to a place precipitating complete steering loss and retirement.

Massa’s tyre misfortunes were difficult to reason albeit his wing damage certainly seemed to occur right at the start of the race after contact. The 2013 Ferrari is clearly a strong contender for honours this year but questionable race decisions are preventing the cars from showing their true potential. Like Lotus the Ferrari design this year seems to flatter tyre wear and undoubtedly were it not for bad luck and some odd strategy calls we could have seen some red on the podium. As it is Vettel has now established a good lead in the Championship and one that it is difficult to see being clawed back easily as the F1 circus takes a three week break before moving even further west and into Europe.

Click here for FIA lap chart.

Stefano Domenicali: ““Today’s result needs to be put behind us in a hurry, although there is a feeling of great disappointment that we were unable to bring home the hoped for result. Despite his problem with the DRS, Fernando produced a blistering drive, pulling off overtaking moves and setting lap times that were absolutely incredible. Felipe’s race was also very complicated: first of all he was involved in a collision at the start of the race, which damaged the front wing on his F138, then he had tyre problems which compromised his race still further”.

Fernando Alonso: “After the opening laps, when I thought the rear tyres had gone off, the pit wall informed that the DRS was stuck. It wasn’t fixed properly at the first stop and so I had to come in for another one. From then on, the clear instruction from the pit wall not to use it affected my race. I tried to recover but it was really difficult finding places to overtake without DRS. When you are far back, in the middle of a group, tyre degradation is even harder to manage”. “

Felipe Massa:“I was really unlucky in this race and even if it’s true that many things can happen in this sport, I can’t find an explanation for why so many of them have to be negative. At the start, I lost ground after the collision with Sutil and then I lost even more time coming back to the pits to change tyres and that wiped out any chance of having a good race. We still need to check what happened to my tyres that failed in this way. In the first instance it was probably delamination on the right rear and in the second it might have been due to a puncture”.