The Bahrain Grand Prix is a Formula One Championship race took place for the first time at the Bahrain International Circuit on 4 April 2004. It made history as the first Formula One Grand Prix to be held in the Middle East, and was given the award for the “Best Organized Grand Prix” by the FIA.
Bahrain Grand Prix has usually been the third race of the Formula One calendar. However, in the 2006 season, Bahrain swapped places with the traditional opener, the Australian Grand Prix, which was pushed back to avoid a clash with the Commonwealth Games.
In 2010, Bahrain staged the opening race of the 2010 season and the cars drove the full 6.299 km (3.914 mi) “Endurance Circuit” to celebrate F1’s ‘diamond jubilee’.
Since 2014, the race has held as a night race under floodlights. It became the second Formula One night race after the Singapore Grand Prix.
Shortly after the Formula One February 2014 testing, Grand Prix organizers for Bahrain announced a decision to name the first corner of the iconic track after former seven-time champion German driver Michael Schumacher in honor of his achievements.
Bahrain Prix, Round three of the 2017 Formula 1 season
Circuit Name: Bahrain International Circuit (Permanent Circuit)
Race Laps: 57
Circuit Length: 5.412 km (3.363 mi)
Race Length: 308.405 km (191.634 mi)
Number of corners: 15 (9 Right, 6 Left)
DRS Zone: Two Zones (Zone 1 between turn 10 and 11, zone 2 at the Start/Finish Line between Turn 15 and 1)
Circuit Direction: Clockwise
Pole Position 2016: Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes 1:29.493
Track Record: 1:31.447 – Pedro de la Rosa, Mclraen-Mercedes 2005
Pirelli used compounds
For the first 5 round of the 2017 Formula 1 season, Pirelli will supply all teams with the same sets of compounds, following the introduction on the new wider and bigger tires.
Compounds sets will be as follows:
7 of the softest (P Zero Red Super-soft here)
5 of the middle (Zero Yellow Soft here)
2 of the Hardest (P Zero White Medium here)
Tyres that must be available (one of them to be used) at some point in the race:
One set of P Zero Yellow soft
One set of P Zero Red Super-Soft
Tyres assigned for Q3 in qualifying:
One set of P Zero Red Super-Soft
THE CIRCUIT FROM A TYRE POINT OF VIEW:
MARIO ISOLA – HEAD OF CAR RACING
“The biggest gains at Sakhir are all to be found in traction: it is quite a stop-start circuit, so getting the power down properly and keeping the rear tyres in good condition is very important. Last year we found quite a high degree of wear and degradation, so it will be interesting to see how this has changed with the introduction of our 2017-specification tyres. The second free practice session will be particularly important, as it is the only one held in representative conditions of qualifying and the race.”
Bahrain Grand Prix Winners 2004 – 2016
|
Year |
Driver |
Constructor |
Configuration |
|
2016 |
Nico Rosberg |
Mercedes |
Sakhir Grand Prix Circuit |
|
2015 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
|
|
2014 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
|
|
2013 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Red Bull-Renault |
|
|
2012 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Red Bull-Renault |
|
|
2011 |
Not held |
||
|
2010 |
Fernando Alonso |
Ferrari |
Sakhir Endurance Circuit |
|
2009 |
Jenson Button |
Brawn-Mercedes |
Sakhir Grand Prix Circuit |
|
2008 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
|
|
2007 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
|
|
2006 |
Fernando Alonso |
Renault |
|
|
2005 |
Fernando Alonso |
Renault |
|
|
2004 |
Michael Schumacher |
Ferrari |
|
Multiple Winners (Drivers)
|
# of wins |
Driver |
Years |
|
3 |
Fernando Alonso |
2005, 2006, 2010 |
|
2 |
Felipe Massa |
2007, 2008 |
|
Sebastian Vettel |
2012, 2013 |
|
|
Lewis Hamilton |
2014, 2015 |
Multiple Winners (Constructors)
|
# of wins |
Constructor |
Years |
|
4 |
Ferrari |
2004, 2007, 2008, 2010 |
|
|
Mercedes |
2014, 2015, 2016 |
|
2 |
Renault |
2005, 2006 |
|
Red Bull |
2012, 2013 |
Numbers and Facts
Most wins (driver) 3 Alonso 2005 – 2006 – 2010
Most wins (constructor) 4 Ferrari 2004 – 2007 – 2008 – 2010
Wins from pole position 5 Most recent 2015 (Hamilton – Mercedes)
Lowest grid for past winner 4 Alonso 2006 and Button 2009
Most recent 1-2 finish 2014 Hamilton – Rosberg (Mercedes)
Most emphatic win (here) 16.099s 2010 (Alonso – Massa)
Closest winning margin 1.085s 2014 (Hamilton – Rosberg)
Rain-affected races 1, 2004
Safety Car-affected races 2, 2007 – 2014
Red Flag (and result declared) races 0
2-hour rule shortened races 0
Fastest race 2004, 57 laps@ 1hr 28m 34.875
Slowest race (here) 2014 57 laps @ 1hr 35m 42.743
Most pole positions (driver) 2 Michael Schumacher (2004 – 2006), Sebastian Vettel (2010 – 2011) Nico Rosberg (2013 – 2014) and Lewis Hamilton (2015 – 2016)
Most pole positions (constructor) 4 Mercedes (2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016)
What Happened last race here?
The race was the second round of the 2016 season and marked the twelfth time that the Bahrain Grand Prix had been run as a round of the Formula One World Championship.
Lewis Hamilton was the defending race winner, while his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg was the Drivers’ Championship leader coming into the round.
During qualifying, which saw the second iteration of the heavily criticised “elimination format”, Hamilton achieved pole position ahead of Rosberg and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Rosberg won the race from Kimi Raikkonen, with Hamilton completing the podium.
2016 Race Classification
|
Year |
Driver |
Constructor |
Configuration |
|
2016 |
Nico Rosberg |
Mercedes |
Sakhir Grand Prix Circuit |
|
2015 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
|
|
2014 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
|
|
2013 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Red Bull-Renault |
|
|
2012 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Red Bull-Renault |
|
|
2011 |
Not held |
||
|
2010 |
Fernando Alonso |
Ferrari |
Sakhir Endurance Circuit |
|
2009 |
Jenson Button |
Brawn-Mercedes |
Sakhir Grand Prix Circuit |
|
2008 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
|
|
2007 |
Felipe Massa |
Ferrari |
|
|
2006 |
Fernando Alonso |
Renault |
|
|
2005 |
Fernando Alonso |
Renault |
|
|
2004 |
Michael Schumacher |
Ferrari |
|
Did you know?
DRIVERS
✪ Sebastian Vettel has only taken pole once for Ferrari, in Singapore 2015
Vettel has still not won back-to-back Grand Prix since he won the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix. That race ended a 9-race run of victories that started in Belgium, (BEL, ITA,
SIN, KOR, JAP, IND, ABU, USA, BRA)
✪ Lewis Hamilton is just 5 pole positions from equalling Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68 F1 GP pole positions. Since he has been at Mercedes he has taken
pole 37 times already. That is over 40% of all races he’s started for the team (37/ 80 = 46.3%). He is also just 2 behind Ayrton Senna’s (second-best) career total of 65 pp’s
✪ Hamilton in Bahrain can beat Alain Prost’s 106 F1 podiums. Only Michael Schumacher has achieved more podiums (155)
✪ Hamilton has won (54) 28.4% of all GP he’s started (190) and is in the top 10 drivers races to win ratio of all-time. This is how he compares:-
- Fangio 47.0%, 2. Ascari 40.6%, 3. Clark 34.7%, 4. M. Schumacher 29.7%, 5. Hamilton 28.4% 6. Ja. Stewart 27.2% 7. Prost 25.6% 8. A. Senna 25.5%, 9. S. Moss 24.2%
- Vettel 23.9% (43/ 180)
✪ Hamilton has now led 101 different F1 Grand Prix races. Only Michael Schumacher has led more (142)
✪ Before Valtteri Bottas Hamilton has had 4 different teammates in F1. Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg. Of the 4 Alonso is now the only one left racing in F1
✪ Bottas has scored more F1 points (434) than team boss Niki Lauda (420.5)
✪ China marked the 125th F1 event he has taken part in, since Kimi Raikkonen last took pole position (France 2008)
✪ Sergio Perez needs just 1 more podium to become the Mexican driver with the most F1 podiums (currently =1 with Pedro Rodriguez on 7)
✪ Romain Grosjean will be 31 on Monday 17th April
BHRAIN GRAND PRIX
✪ Only Fernando Alonso has won more than 2 Bahrain Grand Prix. Either one of Felipe Massa, Hamilton or Vettel could join him on 3 wins this weekend
✪ Michael Schumacher, Vettel, Nico Rosberg and Hamilton share the all-time record of 2 Bahrain Grand Prix pole positions. Could either Hamilton or Vettel take the record
outright this weekend? Massa or Alonso could equal the record if either one of them takes pole
✪ Here in Bahrain 10 years ago, Hamilton made the first of his 107 F1 front row starts to date, (P2 alongside Massa. He finished 2nd too in the race behind Massa)
CONSTRUCTORS
✪ Ferrari last season was the only team to score championship points at all 21 events in 2016
✪ Mercedes in Bahrain will be aiming to lockout the front row for the 48th time. The all-time record is 62 and is jointly held by McLaren and Williams
✪ 93.9% of all Mercedes’s wins to date have come from front row starts (61/ 65)
✪ China was venue for Mercedes’s 150th F1 World Championship race start as a constructor
✪ China was the venue for Mercedes’s 75th F1 World Championship pole position as a constructor
✪ Red Bull’s podium in China made it 100 Grand Prix at which at least 1 of their drivers has featured on the race podium
✪ The current Williams team traces its origins back to the setting up of Williams Grand Prix Engineering by Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977. This year the team will
be celebrating its 40th anniversary. The team began by running a March for Belgian Patrick Neve and became a constructor in 1978 running a single FW06 car for Alan
Jones. In 1979 the team expanded to 2 cars with Clay Regazzoni joining Jones. Regazzoni won Williams’s first Grand Prix, at Silversone in 1979 while Jones claimed
Williams’s first driver’s and first constructor’s titles in 1980. Frank Williams had made his first forays into F1 in 1969, running a Brabham for Piers Courage. Campaigns with
De Tomaso, private March’s, with his own cars and ex-works Heskeths latterly in conjunction with Canadian-Austrian entrepreneur Walter Wolf followed but it wasn’t until Williams teamed up with Head and started a new team all over again that Williams’s F1 fortunes really took off
✪ Williams has not led a Grand Prix since leading the British Grand Prix 18 months ago
✪ China was the 50th race since McLaren led at least a lap of a Grand Prix (Hungary 2014)
BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX
✪ Mercedes looking for a fifth Bahrain pole in a row and a fourth Bahrain Grand Prix victory in a row. Nobody else has managed more than 2 Bahraini poles or 2 Bahrain
Grand Prix victories in a row. A Mercedes win would equal the all-time record of wins currently held by Ferrari (4). Mercedes already hold the all-time record for poles (4)
✪ Pole for Ferrari would equal Mercedes’s all-time record (4). Until Hamilton’s pole last year the two constructors shared the record. Can Ferrari get it back?
✪ Ferrari has scored a record 11 podiums to date in Bahrain. It is nearly double that of the next-best podium score (Mercedes – 6). Ferrari has also led more Bahrain Grand
Prix than any other constructor (7). Next-best is Red Bull and Mercedes who have each led 4 Bahrain Grand Prix to date
✪ Mercedes has put both of their drivers on the Bahrain Grand Prix podium for the past 3 seasons. Ferrari is the only other constructor to have scored a double-podium
result here in successive seasons and then ‘only’ 2 years’ running. The Scuderia managed to do so in 2007 and 2008
Driver’s Championship standing
|
Pos. |
Driver |
Constructor |
Points |
|
1 |
Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari |
43 |
|
2 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
43 |
|
3 |
Max Verstappen |
Red Bull Racing-Tag Heuer |
25 |
|
4 |
Valtteri Bottas |
Mercedes |
23 |
|
5 |
Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari |
22 |
|
6 |
Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull Racing-Tag Heuer |
12 |
|
7 |
Carlos Sainz |
Toro Rosso |
10 |
|
8 |
Felipe Massa |
Williams-Mercedes |
8 |
|
9 |
Sergio Perez |
Force India-Mercedes |
8 |
|
10 |
Kevin Magnussen |
Haas-Ferrari |
4 |
|
11 |
Daniil Kvyat |
Toro Rosso |
2 |
|
12 |
Esteban Ocon |
Force India-Mercedes |
2 |
|
13 |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Renault |
0 |
|
14 |
Romain Grosjean |
Haas-Ferrari |
0 |
|
15 |
Antonio Giovinazzi |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
|
16 |
Stoffel Vandoorne |
McLaren-Honda |
0 |
|
17 |
Jolyon Palmer |
Renault |
0 |
|
18 |
Marcus Ericsson |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
Constructor’s Championship standing
|
Pos |
Constructor |
Points |
|
1 |
Mercedes |
66 |
|
2 |
Ferrari |
65 |
|
3 |
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer |
37 |
|
4 |
Toro Rosso |
12 |
|
5 |
Force India-Mercedes |
10 |
|
6 |
Williams-Mercedes |
8 |
|
7 |
Haas-Ferrari |
4 |
|
8 |
Renault |
0 |
|
9 |
Sauber-Ferrari |
0 |
|
10 |
McLaren-Honda |
0 |
Driver’s penalty points:
|
Driver |
Penalty points |
|
Daniil Kvyat |
8 |
|
Jolyon Palmer |
7 |
|
Sebastian Vettel |
6 |
|
Nico Hulkenberg |
6 |
|
Carlos Sainz |
5 |
|
Pascal Wehrlein |
4 |
|
Kevin Magnussen |
4 |
|
Esteban Ocon |
4 |
|
Sergio Perez |
3 |
|
Romain Grosjean |
3 |
|
Valtteri Bottas |
2 |
|
Kimi Raikkonen |
2 |
|
Marcus Erricson |
2 |
|
Felipe Massa |
2 |
|
Max Verstappen |
1 |