2019 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, March 29 - 31

[ispano6]

Stick with Renault? Remember what happened last year in Bahrain? Two dnf. The results speak for themselves - 3 Honda powered cars FINISHED in the top 10. Renault MGU-K is suspect. Red Bull made the right switch to be the works team. Max had his best finish at Melbourne, he might have kept his podium streak alive too had he had the chance to overtake Leclerc. Also, just because you didnt have the pace to finish 3rd doesn't mean you don't deserve to - Honda reliability would have powered Max to two consecutive podiums so in that regard I feel bad for those engineers for putting together a reliable PU and not having a full race to let reliability play out.
I do wonder what happens to Ricciardo and Renault for not leaving the steering wheel with the car, preventing it from being moved.

[Manoah2u]

Nothing happened, he gets away without penalty. He mentioned he did not mount the wheel because he didn't want to get electrocuted and the red warning light was flashing, giving him all the right to refuse so.

painful to see what happened to both renaults, and sainz last race. also pretty disappointing for sainz to have another DNF.
He had a great run and at more than 1 point was faster than Max, so a 4th place finish perhaps even 3rd would have been possible.

regarding Mclaren's pace, i'm wondering, whether Alonso has made a mistake. I know he wants to win, but looking into Sainz' possible finish,
and Norris' actual finish, i'm shocked on how Mclaren has seemingly put themselves into podium territory, even if luck was needed there
with a Vettel spin and a Leclerc car malfunctioning. Mercedes was lucky just as well, and got a 1-2 there. So kudos to Mclaren.

[foneFanatiq]

RB15 is not a bad car. It's still well rounded and good on the brakes. Gasly hasn't had the pace in it, but he still is able to hunt down other slower cars with it. Max is making the most of it, but has also been making errors.
For me there are two inexperienced young guys in a top car, in time they will set it up properly. Also the Honda engine is suspect in my opinion. I don't think it's versatile. Redbull should have stuck with the Renault.

Stuck with Renault?? Yeah sounds good enough to have a double DNF

[zeph]

regarding Mclaren's pace, i'm wondering, whether Alonso has made a mistake. I know he wants to win, but looking into Sainz' possible finish,
and Norris' actual finish, i'm shocked on how Mclaren has seemingly put themselves into podium territory, even if luck was needed there
with a Vettel spin and a Leclerc car malfunctioning. Mercedes was lucky just as well, and got a 1-2 there. So kudos to Mclaren.

Yeah, McLaren has looked good in both races, and if Sainz hadn't fallen out of favor with Lady Luck they might well have been further up in the standings.

But my guess is they simply lucked out with the tires. Their chassis seems to be working well with them, whereas everybody else is still trying to figure them out. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if McLaren falls back a bit once the other teams get a handle on the tires. They should still be battling for 4th, but I expect the gap with the top three to increase as the season progresses.

[yelistener]

So, even tho Red Bull is not using the renault engine, Red Bull still suffers from renault engine's failure lol

[ispano6]

Seems Ricciardo's issue was due to a safety issue with "electrocution" fears. Definitely would not want to be driving a car with such issues.

Wife asked a great question regarding safety car finishes - why isn't there extra time laps like futbol/soccer? Fo every lap under safety car, the race is extended. Finishing with a safety car was disappointing even for her.

[Morteza]

[ispano6]

Nothing happened, he gets away without penalty. He mentioned he did not mount the wheel because he didn't want to get electrocuted and the red warning light was flashing, giving him all the right to refuse so.

painful to see what happened to both renaults, and sainz last race. also pretty disappointing for sainz to have another DNF.
He had a great run and at more than 1 point was faster than Max, so a 4th place finish perhaps even 3rd would have been possible.

regarding Mclaren's pace, i'm wondering, whether Alonso has made a mistake. I know he wants to win, but looking into Sainz' possible finish,
and Norris' actual finish, i'm shocked on how Mclaren has seemingly put themselves into podium territory, even if luck was needed there
with a Vettel spin and a Leclerc car malfunctioning. Mercedes was lucky just as well, and got a 1-2 there. So kudos to Mclaren.

I doubt Sainz would have kept up with Max for the 2nd stint, considering how far back the fastest Renault powered car was from him prior to the safety car. Max was only 6seconds behind Bottas and over 30sec ahead of Norris. And if Sainz had pushed to keep up with Max it still isn't guaranteed that he would have finished the race at that pace.
People here seem to want to think RB15 is a good car and that its the engine holding it back, when the drivers are complaining the car slides and Marko himself says the chassis is far from optimal or ideal.

Truth is RB15 is not extracting its potential and it will take some time to remedy. Horner said the car should see 8 to 9 evolutions during the season, so the fact that Max has finished 3rd and 4th speaks volumes to his ability to will his way around. He and Honda are keeping themselves in the fight early on in the season which is exactly what they need now.

[SmallSoldier]

Nothing happened, he gets away without penalty. He mentioned he did not mount the wheel because he didn't want to get electrocuted and the red warning light was flashing, giving him all the right to refuse so.

painful to see what happened to both renaults, and sainz last race. also pretty disappointing for sainz to have another DNF.
He had a great run and at more than 1 point was faster than Max, so a 4th place finish perhaps even 3rd would have been possible.

regarding Mclaren's pace, i'm wondering, whether Alonso has made a mistake. I know he wants to win, but looking into Sainz' possible finish,
and Norris' actual finish, i'm shocked on how Mclaren has seemingly put themselves into podium territory, even if luck was needed there
with a Vettel spin and a Leclerc car malfunctioning. Mercedes was lucky just as well, and got a 1-2 there. So kudos to Mclaren.

I doubt Sainz would have kept up with Max for the 2nd stint, considering how far back the fastest Renault powered car was from him prior to the safety car. Max was only 6seconds behind Bottas and over 30sec ahead of Norris. And if Sainz had pushed to keep up with Max it still isn't guaranteed that he would have finished the race at that pace.
People here seem to want to think RB15 is a good car and that its the engine holding it back, when the drivers are complaining the car slides and Marko himself says the chassis is far from optimal or ideal.

Truth is RB15 is not extracting its potential and it will take some time to remedy. Horner said the car should see 8 to 9 evolutions during the season, so the fact that Max has finished 3rd and 4th speaks volumes to his ability to will his way around. He and Honda are keeping themselves in the fight early on in the season which is exactly what they need now.

Your analysis in regards to the time delta between car’s isn’t a representation of the actual performance of each team... Verstappen was 30 seconds from Hamilton before the Safety Car and 42 seconds behind Leclerc before the latter one started having issues.

The fact that Norris was 30 seconds behind Verstappen by the end of the race is more a result of Norris having drop to 15th in lap 1 and had to fight his way through the field, stuck some times in DRS trains... While Verstappen was driving in clean air with no one to fight in front or behind him... Those are 2 different races for each driver and responsible for the delta more than the performance of the car themselves.

Probably a more comparable set would be with Gasly, who was in that midfield pack (actually ahead of Norris by the end of lap 1) and who finished behind him.

You are entitle to your opinion about Sainz being able to keep Verstappen’s pace and you would be “as right” as someone saying that if Sainz would have made the move stick, he would have kept Verstappen behind all race... Reality is both scenario’s are probable and no one really knows what would have happened.


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[drunkf1fan]

I see a lot of people already think Leclerc is definitely faster than vettel. I say we should wait couple of races. My bet is that the situation will be different than it was in Bahrain.

Regarding the spin. Vettel despararely wanted good exit to try to defend. I don't think that he would have chance to attack Hamilton later.

A lot of strange things happening in this race. Hamilton had excellent race pace except in second stint. That was very strange as he was ok on soft tire in the first stint. Vettel had bad stints 1 and 3. The second stint was excellent.

Vettel's second stint was poor, he was 3.3 seconds off Leclerc at the end of the first stint and 8.6 at the end of the second stint, though some of that was because Leclerc pit first and came out with a bigger gap due to the undercut.

Vettel and Leclerc both did soft/medium/medium. Mercedes both did soft/soft/medium. Mercedes only had one set of mediums available to them for the race so they had to do two stints on the soft, the medium was a much better race tire. Vettel was slower than Leclerc until his engine went bad, he was only faster tham Hamilton when Hamilton was on the worse tire.

Merc not bringing more mediums hurt them pretty badly. If he pitted onto mediums he likely would have been a lot closer to Leclerc and no where near Vettel coming back at him in the second stint, which most likely would have meant Vettel would have finished second after the engine problems.

Actually Bottas did soft medium medium

Actually soft medium soft, I just knew both only had one set available for the race and presumed they would save the best tire for last for both drivers and use the same strategy. Arguably a lighter car would do marginally better on the softs at the end than earlier on but it's also a riskier strategy. With softs in the middle stint you can carry them as long as you can then pit for mediums which will last better. If you pit assuming the softs will be okay for 20 laps and they go off a cliff at 15, you likely have to pit again. Very surprised they went that way with strategy for him, with his tire wear that is incredibly risky.

That makes Bottas's middle stint a lot worse and his final stint pretty meh in that he was slower than Ham even while the tire was new/good.

[drunkf1fan]

Seems Ricciardo's issue was due to a safety issue with "electrocution" fears. Definitely would not want to be driving a car with such issues.

Wife asked a great question regarding safety car finishes - why isn't there extra time laps like futbol/soccer? Fo every lap under safety car, the race is extended. Finishing with a safety car was disappointing even for her.

Because you start with a set amount of fuel, extra fuel costs performance, you have to finish with a certain amount of fuel for testing, which I honestly forget what it is these days, 1 litre or something, meaning you can't just add on laps to any kind of motorsport without fuel problem.

In terms of electrocution, that isn't why Ricciardo's race ended, he said that's why he didn't put his steering wheel back on the car because the car wasn't grounded when he got out of it. The race ended because the electrics simply cut out, , when there is a problem with the electrics sometimes the car can become unsafe to touch. The car became unsafe because of the failure, they didn't stop because the car became unsafe.

[Hammerfist]

Vettel's second stint was poor, he was 3.3 seconds off Leclerc at the end of the first stint and 8.6 at the end of the second stint, though some of that was because Leclerc pit first and came out with a bigger gap due to the undercut.

Vettel and Leclerc both did soft/medium/medium. Mercedes both did soft/soft/medium. Mercedes only had one set of mediums available to them for the race so they had to do two stints on the soft, the medium was a much better race tire. Vettel was slower than Leclerc until his engine went bad, he was only faster tham Hamilton when Hamilton was on the worse tire.

Merc not bringing more mediums hurt them pretty badly. If he pitted onto mediums he likely would have been a lot closer to Leclerc and no where near Vettel coming back at him in the second stint, which most likely would have meant Vettel would have finished second after the engine problems.

Actually Bottas did soft medium medium

Actually soft medium soft, I just knew both only had one set available for the race and presumed they would save the best tire for last for both drivers and use the same strategy. Arguably a lighter car would do marginally better on the softs at the end than earlier on but it's also a riskier strategy. With softs in the middle stint you can carry them as long as you can then pit for mediums which will last better. If you pit assuming the softs will be okay for 20 laps and they go off a cliff at 15, you likely have to pit again. Very surprised they went that way with strategy for him, with his tire wear that is incredibly risky.

That makes Bottas's middle stint a lot worse and his final stint pretty meh in that he was slower than Ham even while the tire was new/good.

Yep u are right.

[digitalrurouni]

What a crazy awesome race. Heartbroken for Leclerc but Lewis showed why he's champion. His moves on Bottas without DRS and fighting against Vettel was awesome!

[GPR-A]

This track shows, how the other stupid circuits on the calendar are taking the joy of watching F1 away. Circuits like Melbourne, Monaco, Singapore, Hungary and even Spain, simply aren't good enough to be on the calendar anymore with their current shape for these new generation cars. Slower cars holding up miles faster cars behind, only because the overtaking is simply impossible with the kind of speeds these cars have, is just a sham.

Many people don't like the DRS, but it is helping the cars stay together and opportunity for passing. Instead of having trains of procession. The F1 cars aren't going to go back to the old days of little to nothing wake affecting the following car, providing better slip stream effect for overtakes. In those days, the cars barely had such high traction and speeds, which would make the small straights look really long and aided overtakes via slipstream and NO wake. Current cars are just too quick for these small straights on some of the circuits mentioned above.

[Sierra117]

Wife asked a great question regarding safety car finishes - why isn't there extra time laps like futbol/soccer? Fo every lap under safety car, the race is extended. Finishing with a safety car was disappointing even for her.

Probably because cars are on fumes towards the end of the race and can't "recover" from drinking water the way biological bodies like humans can for short bursts of time.

After some time I think it was correct to use the safety car. It was very windy and you don't want someone spinning out and running into a marshall, something the higher speeds during a VSC could result in. Plus it artificially preserved Leclerc's podium so I guess it acted as a weird consolation of "could be worse".