The pace of the early season continues on relentlessly only two days since I updated the points system from China and the blog is back for another race weekend and another one steeped in contrasts. Having moved away from the far eastern reaches of Shanghai the season moves a little closer setting down in the middle east in preparation for the rather controversial return to Sakhir the location of the Bahrain Grand Prix. A race that was cancelled from the start of the 2011 season, which did really buy me enough to time to set up the pages for the first outing of this venture last season. But the race was removed from the calendar on due a large amount instability in the region being one of the nations undergoing a lot of civil unrest which has been sweeping across several countries in the middle east. Unrest which has remained in some of the countries, Bahrain itself hasn't calmed completely hence the unease between the teams in returning to the island. Especially considering people have been burning race advertisements and some clashes between protesters and police have taken place in the past few weeks.
But all that aside the teams have arrived in the island nation, and everything seems calm, not that I've seen any news about the opening day yet. So here's hoping for a safe and uninterrupted race weekend, without any intervention from protesters, keeping a run of no protesting since that guy took a walkabout down the hangar straight. The location of the race however does mean there won't be any climatic involvement this time round, something that has impacted on the rest of the events already this year - I can't imagine there being any tropical monsoons in the middle of the desert. After two generic tracks, the sands of Bahrain present something a little different so, here's looking at the lap for the Bahrain GP.
co
The Track
 |
| Circuit graphic from the FIA |
Here at Bahrain Tilke seems to have run out of corners in his box of track pieces and has thrown a whole bunch of straights together with hairpins, using the remaining corners sparingly - which is shame considering the corners are the only redeeming feature of the track. The other sections are a little bit dull, to be honest given a blank canvas in the middle of the desert you'd have thought there was more room for some imagination. Unfortunately the desert is a rather flat place, and undulation often makes driving a track more entertaining, just look at Mt Panorama or Spa with a lot of elevation changes. Yet this track is designed to work with the modern era of formula one - using the large amounts of haripins to encourage overtaking in a time when it was a rare and momentous event when one car went past another one.
One thing we have to be grateful for and that is the endurance loop has been cut from the lap this time around because it was a complete and utter failure - something that was very unsuited to F1 racing and completely ruined the flow of the race. Making the last visit here was the dullest race with these current interpretation of the regulations, things have been getting considerably better since, and since the track didn't get a run in 2011, this will be the first inclusion of DRS in Bahrain to make things interesting. On paper and going off the track map the layout should present so many opportunities for overtaking and actual racing, so if we end up with the train of cars as we saw in China the catalyst may not have to wait until the final 13 laps of the race.
Now it is time to unleash the multimedia aspect of the posting with the traditional track video, from a virtual representation of the Bahrain track in the middle of the desert - this time taking a slightly longer time than normal as I am taking a different approach. Leaving the current blogmobile at home and aim for a replacement transportation service, finding something that is a long way short of the 107% even slower than the HRT team. Recording the slowest track lap (except the Nordschleife) in the fairly short history of the blog so far.
What to expect
Looking at the track and what we've seen this year, we could be seeing something a little similar to China - where the quantity of straights will play to the special DRS gizmo lurking in the rear wing of the Mercedes which will hand them the advantage outside of the race. However McLaren and Red Bull will be ever present as normal, and during the race will could easily run faster than the Mercedes without the intervention of troubled pit-stops. Lotus can be considered to be ahead of Ferrari and closer to the other top teams.
In the mid-field it does appear that Sauber have claimed that position as the leader of the middle teams, and with their superior top speed to pretty much everything else on the grid they could once more defeat some of the quicker teams. While Williams have set themselves in second position in this class, in fact outside the top five teams the rest of the grid is beginning to separate like really old unmixed paint. The different layers are beginning to surface, yet at the same time everyone is running closer than ever.
Although the divisions tend to fall into place in qualifying on pace, the events of a race will easily shuffle the positions around so almost anyone can score points by the time the flag comes out a the end of the weekend. In fact the only driver (except the bottom three teams) not to have scored a point this season is the increasingly under pressure Felipe Massa, especially as his team-mate has managed a win in the car and a recovery drive in Australia to score high points. That sums up how competitive the season is if only three races in and only one car beyond the bottom three is left on zero points - demonstrating that in reality you can expect anything. Of course there will be the constants of the rear three teams who will barring anomalous events, line up in the same order they always do.
Blog Predictions
Here is the point where I demonstrate the lack of knowledge about this thing and get the outcome completely wrong
Looking at the track and what we've seen this year, we could be seeing something a little similar to China - where the quantity of straights will play to the special DRS gizmo lurking in the rear wing of the Mercedes which will hand them the advantage outside of the race. However McLaren and Red Bull will be ever present as normal, and during the race will could easily run faster than the Mercedes without the intervention of troubled pit-stops. Lotus can be considered to be ahead of Ferrari and closer to the other top teams.
In the mid-field it does appear that Sauber have claimed that position as the leader of the middle teams, and with their superior top speed to pretty much everything else on the grid they could once more defeat some of the quicker teams. While Williams have set themselves in second position in this class, in fact outside the top five teams the rest of the grid is beginning to separate like really old unmixed paint. The different layers are beginning to surface, yet at the same time everyone is running closer than ever.
Although the divisions tend to fall into place in qualifying on pace, the events of a race will easily shuffle the positions around so almost anyone can score points by the time the flag comes out a the end of the weekend. In fact the only driver (except the bottom three teams) not to have scored a point this season is the increasingly under pressure Felipe Massa, especially as his team-mate has managed a win in the car and a recovery drive in Australia to score high points. That sums up how competitive the season is if only three races in and only one car beyond the bottom three is left on zero points - demonstrating that in reality you can expect anything. Of course there will be the constants of the rear three teams who will barring anomalous events, line up in the same order they always do.
Blog Predictions
Here is the point where I demonstrate the lack of knowledge about this thing and get the outcome completely wrong
- Hamilton
- Schumacher
- Button
- Webber
- Rosberg
- Raikkonen
- Vettel
- Senna
- Alonso
- Perez
Qualifying Battle
- Red Bull: Webber
- McLaren: Hamilton
- Ferrari: Alonso
- Mercedes: Schumacher
- Lotus: Raikkonen
- Sauber: Kobayashi
- Williams: Maldonado
- Force India: Hulkenburg
- Torro Rosso: Ricciardo
- Caterham: Kovalainen
- Marussia: Glock
- HRT: De La Rosa
So there you have it, building up for the more apprehensive race of the season, where we can only hope the gravity of the on track action will become a focal point of entertainment and not a target for protests once the world's media have turned up. This needs to be a weekend that transcends the darkness that has engulfed the nation and forced the cancellation of the last scheduled race in 2011. Beyond the political challenges the country is facing at the moment this will be a chance to take the modern version of formula once to a track it should work well on, with the straights and hairpins to encourage cars to attack each other.
As the DRS zones were not declared last year I can confirm that for the race the DRS activation zone will be located on the front straight with the detection point at end of the final straight. Which does seem a little wasted really considering there are at least four good straights where the service could be applied, but I suppose that plonking the DRS sections everywhere would make things a little too easy and dilute the experience of the race. So we shall have to see, I suppose the straight is plenty long enough for the device to be effective and might make for a very good weekend. Until next time this is farewell from the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment