TYRE PREVIEW: Thermal degradation is keyword in Bahrain

Following last weekend's Suzuka race, F1 drivers will be back in action this weekend, with the Bahrain International Circuit hosting the fourth race of the season. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his tyre preview for the Manama round.

From Japan and the historic Suzuka track surrounded by cherry blossom, the F1 teams and drivers are now setting up shop in the semi-desert archipelago of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Drivers will need to adjust themselves to a very different set of conditions, especially in terms of temperature, given that it will go from a maximum of under 20°C and the rainy conditions of last Sunday morning to predicted highs of around 30 °C for this coming weekend.

In fact, temperature will be a very important variable when it comes to tyre management at the fourth race of the year. As was the case in Suzuka, the teams will have a choice of the three hardest compounds in Pirelli’s 2025 range, namely the C1 as Hard, the C2 as Medium and the C3 as Soft. However, the Sakhir track characteristics and indeed the temperatures, will require a different approach to that adopted last week in Japan.

In fact, all the teams will have a good baseline from which to start work, given that in the last week of February, the Sakhir circuit hosted the only pre-season test as per the 2025 sporting regulations. It means that everyone will have plenty of data to work with when it comes to setting up the cars and choosing the best strategies for qualifying and the race.

Over 24 hours of track time, the 20 drivers racked up 3,897 laps, equivalent to 21,090.564 kilometres and the tyres to be used this weekend did the most work back then: the C3 did the lion’s share, completing 67.17% of the laps, followed by the C2 (20.88%) and the C1 (9.26%). There were a measly 104 laps run on the C4 and three on the Intermediate

There will be a difference to pre-season testing though, as this weekend’s temperatures will present a new challenge, because during the test week, Sakhir saw unusual weather with strong winds leading to much cooler air and track temperatures than is normal at that time of year.

The minimum start pressures for this weekend have changed based on analysis of the test data, to 23 psi on the front and 21 at the rear. That represents an increase of +1 on the front axle and +2 on the rear compared to the 2024 race and of 0.5 psi on both axles compared to February’s test.

Formula One's tyre supplier Pirelli predicts that a two-stop strategy might dominate proceedings in Sunday's race, but modifications made to the compounds for 2025 might bring a one-stop strategy into play.

Last year, all drivers made at least two stops, while some, like Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) through force of circumstance, others by choice, Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Logan Sargeant (Williams) even stopped three times.

Soft and Hard were the preferred compounds, with the vast majority opting to start on the C3 before making the most of the two sets of C1 they had saved specifically for the race. The exceptions were the Red Bull duo of Verstappen and Perez, who did the final stint on a set of C3s, down to the Milton Keynes team’s technical superiority at the time, underlined by the fact they finished first and second. Their Racing Bulls sister team tried the same thing with Ricciardo, but he finished outside the top ten.

Based on what we have seen in winter testing and over the opening three rounds, it could be a different scenario because of modifications made to the compounds for 2025. While the C1 is pretty similar to its predecessor, the C2 and C3 are softer and most significantly, the three compounds have a better spread in terms of their performance delta.

This could therefore bring the C2 back into play as a race tyre, thus creating more strategy choices for Sunday, with even a one-stop becoming a realistic possibility. Much will depend on how hotter it will be compared to the test, so the three hours of free practice will be very important, especially FP2, which takes place at a similar time of day to the early part of the race.