QUALIFYING
The result of Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying could have been very different. If Charles Leclerc’s lightning-quick reactions hadn’t caught a wild oversteer snap as he raced through the rapid swoop of the Sakhir track’s Turn 7 left on his final Q3 lap, pole surely would have gone to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. No wonder he was keen to demonstrate exactly how he’d caught it to team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr in parc ferme.
In Q1, the Ferrari drivers led the way, Mercedes’ very real 2022 deficit revealed as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton trailed in ninth and 10th. But in Q2, Verstappen edged back ahead, with Sainz now heading his team-mate for the first time all weekend. Even in Formula 1’s new era, Q3 played out as it now traditionally does – two tries for the frontrunners. After the first, Sainz led the way on a 1m30.687s, as Leclerc and Verstappen respectively trailed by 0.044 seconds and 0.056s.
Verstappen was frustrated with his out-lap approach on his first attempt, feeling it was too slow and cost him critical tyre temperature. After a front-wing adjustment, he returned to the fray behind his two red rivals, but also having to follow Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, and so had to back off late to create a gap, which he felt again cost him tyre heat – it was unusually cold for Bahrain until Sunday – for the final fliers.
Leclerc led the way. He felt his session was “a bit too messy” overall, and even on the last effort was “struggling with the tyres, especially for the first sector”. Missing the Turn 1 apex lost him time to both his rivals, and the Turn 7 snap was his most costly moment – “I nearly lost it” – but despite it he set the best time in the middle sector. In the final sector he was quickest too, roaring to the line – the Ferrari accelerated quicker than the Red Bull, which had better end-of-straight speed – to record 1m30.558s.
Sainz was ultimately undone by 0.129s, lost while having to hesitate accelerating out of the Turn 8 hairpin as the rear squirmed, then correcting a small oversteer snap through Turn 13 before the penultimate straight. Verstappen’s understeer at Turn 8 was costly, but he shipped time overall after going quickest in sector one, his tyres out of the ideal window.
In the pack behind, Hamilton rescued fifth behind Sergio Perez, while Russell’s decision to push hard on his final Q3 out-lap backfired and he slid wildly through the opening corners, ending up back in ninth. Magnussen took a sensational seventh on his sole Q3 run, after Haas had worked to fix a hydraulic problem affecting his power steering late in Q2, the US team’s best qualifying result since Brazil 2019.
“MAGNUSSEN TOOK A SENSATIONAL SEVENTH, THE HAAS TEAM’S BEST QUALIFYING RESULT SINCE BRAZIL 2019”
As FP1 for the 2022 Formula 1 season opener commences, Autosport is back in its trusty position from pre-season testing a week earlier. That’s behind the exit of the tricky, downhill double-left Turns 9/10 complex in the middle of the Bahrain circuit. We want to compare how the cars are behaving at this spot to a week earlier.
It’s quite a turnaround. Where in testing there’d been mistakes galore here, locked left-fronts regularly sending plumes of smoke skywards, this time all is calm.
The wind has turned 180 degrees, blowing a strong headwind down the pitstraight and a tailwind onto the back straight, which starts at our vantage point. This means conditions on Friday and Saturday are unusually cool for the region, and the drivers are having a far easier time through this sequence. Mick Schumacher’s small lock-up and slippery oversteer exit is the only moment of note throughout the whole of FP1.
As that wasn’t going to cut it on our word count here, we find a new plan for FP3. Armed with a different tabard, we head for the pitlane. Positioning ourselves just outside the Mercedes garage, we settle down to learn what life is like for the team during the final hour of qualifying preparation.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are sent out almost immediately for early sighters, at the end of which they’re called back in so set-up adjustments can be made. Mercedes uses their return for a spot of live pitstop practice, burly mechanics ushering TV camera operators and photographers out of the approach path, which for the Silver Arrows drivers is longer and straighter than the rest due to its 2021 constructors’ triumph. But the approach is not as easy as it was last year, with an LED floor board installed between the FIA weighbridge and the garages requiring the drivers to turn sharply right, then left, for a straight run to the box. Hamilton sweeps in gently, Russell is more angular and aggressive.
The team works through its programme, hurriedly erecting cordons when the cars are in the garage to keep the media at bay. It’s a busy spot for those who usually inhabit this area, TV reporters from UK, Austrian and Danish broadcasters wandering up and down, although spending most of their time at the sharp end where the top teams reside. Scrutineers and mechanics ask regular questions to prowling FIA officials.
With five minutes of the onehour session remaining, Russell heads in and immediately jumps from his W13. But his session isn’t over – he just needs to get something out of his race boot. Back aboard, he heads out for the post-chequered flag, grid-based practice starts. But there’s drama when he returns. After Hamilton is wheeled back in for the final time, a photographer continues to shoot towards the pitlane’s far end, unaware that he’s straddling the white line Mercedes had earlier made clear wasn’t to be crossed when a car is on its way in. Russell negotiates him with professional precision, but it’s still very close. As we depart, the photographer is being informed of his peril, the message clear: don’t do that again.
“AS WE DEPART, THE PHOTOGRAPHER IS BEING INFORMED OF HIS PERIL”
which came on the same lap as Verstappen’s pre-safety car service.
Hamilton was nearly half a minute adrift of Perez when the race was neutralised. He’d gone a different route to the green-flag three-stoppers, taking used hard Pirellis at his first pit visit and from there going to the mediums. But Mercedes’tried and tested trick of fitting the hards and pushing on just didn’t work as well as it had for much of the ultra-highdownforce F1 era, with Hamilton also having to fight his way past former team-mate Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo after his first stop and ahead of Gasly following his second.
Perez and Hamilton were both back on the softs under the safety car, with the seven-time world champion chasing hard when racing resumed. But just when it looked like Perez was safe, on the penultimate lap he reported a power loss, after feeling it coming for“maybe five or six laps or so when Lewis was right behind me”. He continued ahead to Turn 1 on the final tour, where he was most vulnerable to attack. But having critically made the apex ahead, his engine died, locking the rears and sending him spinning out.“it looks suspiciously like the failures are relating to each other,”said Horner of his cars’retirements.“the symptoms looked very similar. We know the fuel was in there.”
And so, a surprise leading trio took the chequered flag first. Ferrari’s first 1-2 since the 2019 Singapore GP followed two painfully fallow years for the squad. This was down to the engine power deficit it faced from the start of 2020 and the result of its controversial settlement with the FIA over its previous engine arrangement. Now it seems back to having F1’s best power punch. Red Bull has greater end-of-straight speed, but the Ferrari accelerates faster.“it’s a good starting point no doubt,”said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto.“we were not expecting the 1-2 or were even not hoping for it. Charles did a fantastic race, Carlos as well.”
But its more surprising to consider Hamilton’s 183rd F1 podium as a shock, which reflects how far adrift the Silver Arrows squad is, primarily because the car is still porpoising badly when running a low set-up, critical to getting the ground-effect working best.
“It was a lot better than it had been,”a clearly delighted Hamilton said in the post-race press conference. “through testing it was killer.
It’s a long race to be bouncing up and down. But I’ll take it with the performance that we managed to squeeze out.”
And so, F1 heads for its second Jeddah race with Ferrari fulfilled, mighty Mercedes just about managing, and Red Bull reeling.
The race day temperatures were the hottest of the weekend, up 4C over the FP2 race-data-gathering period. This exacerbated Verstappen’s brake problems and meant he could not replicate his FP2 long-run form, which was over a second per lap clear of the best that Ferrari could manage on a similar stint length (albeit with Sainz, who couldn’t match his team-mate’s overall pace as he struggled for rear grip).
Binotto explained that his team’s cars“did not have problems with the brake system”, but is clearly wary of Ferrari’s rival posing an ominous threat.“max, on used tyres, was keeping Charles’s pace,” he said when asked if Ferrari could possibly go on to claim the 2022 titles.
“Red Bull are still the favourites.
What we can try to do is our best. Jeddah in a week’s time can be a completely different picture and I think we need to wait at least four or five races before answering that question.”
“THROUGH TESTING IT WAS KILLER. IT’S A LONG RACE TO BE BOUNCING UP AND DOWN”
Team principal Gunther Steiner didn’t “want to understand” how Haas and its recalled driver Kevin Magnussen had landed fifth place in Bahrain, instead preferring to “live the dream”.
It was the best finish since the 2018 Austrian GP for a team that opted against developing its tepid 2021 car to pile resources into the seismic rule change, then had to tear up another contract with a title sponsor before splitting with Nikita Mazepin.
Propelled by the potent
Ferrari power unit, Magnussen qualified seventh before taking home the mantle of ‘best of the rest’ behind the victorious Prancing Horses and the Mercedes duo. That came after a sturdy battle against Pierre Gasly following a second pitstop for the Dane that left him prey on cold tyres at Turn 4 until he recovered the place with DRS. The pressure was ultimately relieved when Gasly’s Alphatauri endured a total shutdown to leave him vaulting out of the AT03 on lap 45 as it burst into flames.
The Frenchman reported: “The whole car just switched off outside of Turn 1, and then I started to smell the burning.”
Magnussen’s Haas team-mate Mick Schumacher, meanwhile, enjoyed a net gain of one place to classify 11th after he was turned around by Esteban Ocon on lap one, which prompted the German to pull off a fine catch to ship only two positions.