From the sunshine of Albert Park, to the bright lights of Sakhir, the Formula One world championship arrives in the Kingdom of Bahrain for the second round of the 2018 season. Join The Roar for a live blog of the Bahrain Grand Prix from 1am AEST.
Hosting its fourteenth grand prix and fifth race under lights, Bahrain has always proved to throw up exhilarating contests and 2018 should be no different – with three teams potentially vying for the win.
57-laps will be contested across the 5.4km power circuit, where horsepower is just as important as chassis balance. Overtaking is more common than in Melbourne too.
Tyres too, play a larger role in Bahrain as supposed to Melbourne, with Pirelli hoping for a two-stop race at the front of the field – with the medium, soft and supersoft tyres available to the drivers.
As far as past form is concerned, Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari hold the most wins at this circuit for both driver and team, with the German having notched his third victory here last year and the Scuderia’s fifth.
Vettel’s teammate Kimi Räikkönen holds the record for the most podiums with a total of eight, though it’s a stat that holds ill-fate, as the Finn is yet to record a win.
Ferrari are in the best place to chase for a sixth win, with both their cars locking out the front-row of the grid, headed by Sebastian Vettel on pole position.
Räikkönen who’s arguably been the fastest all weekend, was aggrieved by traffic at the end of Q3, though can be confident for a good start.
Mixed fortunes for both Mercedes AMG and Red Bull see one of their cars each out of position. Lewis Hamilton will drop to ninth with that 5-place gearbox penalty, whilst Max Verstappen found the wall in Q2 and will start fifteenth.
The star of qualifying was Pierre Gasly, who with Hamilton’s penalty will start fifth for the Honda powered Toro Rosso. Again, there will be a question regarding reliability, following that engine failure in Melbourne.
Kevin Magnussen in the Haas has the chance to right the wrongs too of the first race, from inside the top ten, whilst the Renault duo also look strong inside the ten to challenge for a haul of points.
Can Seb make it two from two then? Or will the Iceman at last be able to break his drought of wins, dating back to 2013?
For live blog coverage of the Bahrain Grand Prix, join me on The Roar from 1am AEST Monday morning, for what should be another cracking race.
anon
Roar Pro
What's Hamilton complaining about? Verstappen did what Hamilton did to Rosberg at Spa 2014. Rosberg was fined 300k Euros by his own team for doing what Hamilton did to Verstappen today!
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Well that wraps up this live blog for the Bahrain Grand Prix then. What a race it was! And I look forward to being back again in one week's time for the Chinese Grand Prix. Until then, thanks for tuning in and have a great day.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
-------- DRIVER'S -------- 50 -- Sebastian Vettel 33 -- Lewis Hamilton 22 -- Valtteri Bottas 16 -- Fernando Alonso 15 -- Kimi Räikkönen 14 -- Nico Hulkenberg 12 -- Daniel Ricciardo 12 -- Pierre Gasly 10 -- Kevin Magnussen 8 --- Max Verstappen 6 --- Stoffel Vandoorne 2 --- Marcus Ericsson 1 --- Carlos Sainz 1 --- Esteban Ocon 0 --- Sergio Perez 0 --- Charles Leclerc 0 --- Brendon Hartley 0 --- Lance Stroll 0 --- Romain Grosjean 0 --- Sergey Sirotkin
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
----- CONSTRUCTOR'S ----- 65 -- Scuderia Ferrari 55 -- Mercedes AMG 22 -- McLaren Renault 20 -- Aston Martin Red Bull Racing 15 -- Renault Sport 12 -- Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda 10 -- Haas Ferrari 2 --- Alfa Romeo Sauber 1 --- Force India Mercedes 0 --- Williams Mercedes
anon
Roar Pro
What a tremendous win by Vettel. Can't believe he pulled that off. The Sky commentary was insufferable practically begging Bottas to win the race.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
RACE REPORT It was a 200th grand prix to remember for Sebastian Vettel, taking victory in Bahrain by the tread of his tyres, to make it two from two in the opening races of the 2018 world championship. In a race that saw plenty of overtaking and tyre strategy dictate the positioning, Vettel nursed a set of soft tyres on an unlikely one-stop race to hand Mercedes AMG the cruellest of defeats. Valtteri Bottas came within 0.6 of a second of the Ferrari, having one-stopped on the mediums tyres, but agonisingly was forced to take the place of runner up ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton – who on the same strategy had a frustrating race which took him from ninth to third. Things didn’t go all Ferrari’s way however, with Kimi Räikkönen retiring from the race with another unsafe release during his pit-stop, which saw one of the mechanics violently swept off his feet and sent to the medical centre subsequently. It was a rotten race for Red Bull also, with a double retirement early on during the 57-lap race. Daniel Ricciardo parked his RB14 with a power-unit related failure, whilst Max Verstappen retired with damage sustained following a puncture he took in a scrap with Hamilton. There was delight for their sister team in Toro Rosso however, with Pierre Gasly finishing a stellar fourth after starting from fifth. Despite racing Haas’ Kevin Magnussen on similar strategies early in the race, the Frenchman was left alone for most of the race – claiming a Honda powered car’s best finish since their return to Formula One in 2015. Haas made up for their disastrous race in Melbourne, with an equal best result for the team of fifth with Magnussen. Romain Grosjean’s race conversely was not as fruitful, finishing fifteenth and littering bits of his car’s bargeboard all over the track. Following a disappointing qualifying, McLaren got both their cars into the points for the second consecutive race, though lost out to the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg in sixth. Fernando Alonso battled the German throughout the race but couldn’t find his way past. Stoffel Vandoorne made a late move on Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, who emphatically scored points for Alfa Romeo Sauber after a long drought of non-points scoring races. Ninth for the Swede and tenth for Esteban Ocon in the Force India means that all the teams have scored a championship point, barring Williams. The championship resumes in just under seven days at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
STANDBY FOR RACE REPORT AND UPDATED STANDINGS
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
PODIUM INTERVIEWS - Hosted by David Coulthard VETTEL - "I had nothing under control!" "Both Mercedes were very strong at the end of the stints." BOTTAS - "I was seeing red!" "I knew there would be a chance that he [Seb] would struggle." HAMILTON - "I'm really happy, I started ninth and finished third."
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
RESULTS FROM THE 57-LAP BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 1 S. Vettel 2 V. Bottas 3 L. Hamilton 4 P. Gasly 5 K. Magnussen 6 N. Hulkenberg 7 F. Alonso 8 S. Vandoorne 9 M. Ericsson 10 E. Ocon 11 C. Sainz 12 S. Perez 13 B. Hartley 14 C. Leclerc 15 R. Grosjean 16 L. Stroll 17 S. Sirotkin RET K. Räikkönen RET M. Verstappen RET D. Ricciardo
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
SEBASTIAN VETTEL WINS THE BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX IN HIS 200TH RACE! Valtteri Bottas misses out just by the smallest of margins, but a solid second place for the Finn. Lewis Hamilton brings his Mercedes AMG home to third.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 57/57: FINAL LAP Bottas takes a peek at Turn 1, but holds off. The next DRS zone will be telling, though it seems that Vettel has held him off.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
FINAL LAP
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 56/57: 2 LAPS TO GO Vettel with 200 grands prix worth of experience doing everything to defend against the Mercedes AMG.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 56/57: 2 LAPS TO GO The gap is now just half a second! Vettel using his ERS to negate the DRS being used by Bottas. This is going to be tight finish!
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 55/57: 3 LAPS TO GO Bottas just misses out on the DRS on this lap by not much at all!
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 55/57: Lock up from Bottas puts the gap back out to 1.5 seconds. Alonso within DRS range of Hulkenberg too, in their little battle for P6.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 54/57: Vettel's getting left-front vibrations now on his tyres. The end of the race is just in sight...
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 53/57: 1:35.412 was Vettel's last time, 1:34.599 for Bottas and 1:33.987 for Hamilton.
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 52/57: 3.2 seconds between Vettel and Bottas at the front. Remember the scraps these two had last year in Russia and Austria?
Jawad Yaqub
Roar Guru
Lap 51/57: Vandoorne hounding over the rear of Ericsson now for P8, with the Swede doing a superb job on that one-stop strategy.