2012 Bahrain Grand Prix

I'm going to need to dose up on strong espresso coffee for this one, if past races are anything to go by...

I predict Button will win due to his tyre management skills, with Hamilton second and Webber third. Schumacher, fourth, followed by Rosberg, then Senna to come home a good seven or eight places up from his qualifying position. Perez to crash into Karthekaiyan. Alonso to drag the Ferrari into 8th. Raikkonen to be let down by his team again, Grosjean to show pace but fade, and Vettel's troubles to continue.

Oh and that I'll be asleep by lap 28.
 
15:00, a pretty good time to start for a lazy sunday. If this season can turn even this race exciting, I'll be amazed. Still looking forward to it though.

Judging by the video though, the layout doesn't look half bad. Atleast it looks fun to drive, but we'll see how it's like to race there.
 
Might not be a good race to watch but I liked driving on it alot in F1 CE. You can really get into a rhythum there and the DRS,the Pirelli tyres and hot temperatures might make it a very interesting race to watch.
 
Hopefully gonna see a Hamilton win here. If not that then he'll probably come third again.

Can't see Mercedes replicating China, much warmer temps in Bahrain.

Mark to outrace Seb yet again. Alonso to drag the car into the points. Grosjean will probably qualify well, then ruin it. Possibly by crashing into Schumacher.

Wanting Schumi to have a good race. Never liked him in his first career but the luck just hasn't been going his way thus far. High points finish or maybe even a podium would be nice to see (as long as it's third behind the two chrome cars 👍)

Good strong finishes for both Saubers would be nice. Kobayashi is being out-performed at the moment and I'd hate to see him lose his seat.
 
Well, last time we used this layout, we got a surprise front row with Toyota. So maybe we will get some surprises this year again what with the higher temperatures and Pirelli tyres which haven't been run here before.

Its been an unpredictable season so far in the top 15 and this is the fourth different track (though it shares similarities to China more than others...it has wildly different weather and track conditions).
Catalunya will be more of a Malaysia track so I'd expect those that were fast in Malaysia to do well there, perhaps applies here too seeing as this track is a mixture of high to medium speed corners and some long straights.

I'm so glad we are not using that "endurance" layout from 2010, it was nice to be different in the games but really the normal layout is far superior.
 
Start of the 10PM races here which has been made all worse considering Ten are moving the rest of the races from their HD channel to their SD channel which is not even going to be live in the western/central parts of Australia (think about that in the UK)*end rant*
 
I believe that McLaren will be as strong here as they have been in the past 3 races. It is only a one week break (4 days until first practice session) and no major upgrades will be brought. This will then mean that each cars' performance will remain similar to China.

However, I do not think Mercedes will be as strong as they were in China. Even though Rosberg achieved pole fair and square, his race pace was not much quicker (if not the same) as McLaren. If Hamilton had started from the front row he would have immediately put pressure on Rosberg, instead of being held up by Schumacher. Also, if Hamilton had not been held up by Massa, Perez, and Vettel he could have challenged for the lead. Button also found himself in traffic due to a slow pit stop.

If it wasn't for these unlucky sequence of events than McLaren could have possibly challenged for the lead. Let's also not forget that China's long straight benefited Mercedes' Double DRS.

To sum up, I think McLaren will show their strength in the Free Practices, and Hamilton will cary that speed into Qualifying and the Race (similar to every other weekend). Button will follow, and Mercedes after them with Renaults sprinkled in. Red Bull will be slow and Webber will out-perform Vettel 👍. Ferrari will be verging on the points and will be beaten by Sauber.

Can't wait for the race, I love these back to back race weekends!
 
I think this is Hamilton's race to win, but Mercedes will be strong here. Now that they are starting to understand the tyre issues, they should be as strong in the races as they are in qualifying. I doubt China was a one-off, you don't win by 20+ seconds by a fluke, only Button was even close to the two Mercs before Schumacher retired.
 
Seismica
I doubt China was a one-off, you don't win by 20+ seconds by a fluke, only Button was even close to the two Mercs before Schumacher retired.
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I agree that Mercedes ran a great race and on thier part was most likley not a fluke. However, I think that McLaren's race was compromized in a couble of ways. First off, if not for Hamilton's grid penalty there would have been a McLaren in between Rosberg and the purposful "roadblock", Schumacher. Plus Hamilton spent much of his time later in the race behind much slower cars which slowed him down considerably. The same applies for Button.

I expect Mercedes to be quick this weekend, but not as dominant as in China. The fact that Hamilton could close that gap considering his unlucky race is a testiment of how good the chasis is along with McLaren's drivers.
 
Jsoccer9
I agree that Mercedes ran a great race and on thier part was most likley not a fluke. However, I think that McLaren's race was compromized in a couble of ways. First off, if not for Hamilton's grid penalty there would have been a McLaren in between Rosberg and the purposful "roadblock", Schumacher. Plus Hamilton spent much of his time later in the race behind much slower cars which slowed him down considerably. The same applies for Button.

I expect Mercedes to be quick this weekend, but not as dominant as in China. The fact that Hamilton could close that gap considering his unlucky race is a testiment of how good the chasis is along with McLaren's drivers.
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Oh I agree, Mercedes won't have the same sort of dominance as they did in China, but they will be very strong and most likely inbetween the Mclarens and the Red Bulls.
 
Mercedes will be shot down by the tyres, unfortunately.

Why are the tyres PURPOSEFULLY designed to go away quickly and be fragile? I'd much rather have better tyres, and really see what the drivers can do. Back when the Bridgestones were used, Hamilton locked up the fronts much more frequently, and was able to pull some crazy moves. Now him and all of the other "Aggressive" drivers have to reel it in, just to keep them alive. I'd rather see a "Sprint" race, where you go hard for 40 laps, not what is becoming a very Endurance-Style tyre set-up. /rant
 
Purposely fragile tires forces drivers to think. It also makes for more difficult driving. Hamilton may be handicapped, but he still makes those poles, and he still had a strong showing in the race (coming up to third from seventh in China required no small amount of skill).

I like the tire game. It makes F1 interesting. What would make it even more interesting is gambles on "no pitstop" strategies... :D
 
hawkeye122
I'd much rather have better tyres, and really see what the drivers can do.
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We had those back in 2010. They were so durable that Vettel could maintain a consistent race pace for 52 laps of Monza on a set of softs. The only reason why he changed onto the hards at the end of lap 52 was because he had to.
 
Well if they're going to only last for 12 laps, make them really great for 12 laps. Keep the Tyre game going, but make the tyres faster.
 
Yeah, the cars are way too slow in the corners.

The tyres are brilliant and are why we've had 2 years with barely a dull race. Pirelli FTW.
 
I think crappy tyres are an excellent way of keeping F1 at reasonable speeds and levels of grip without compromising all the other areas of technical development that make it so special.

Not to mention that race strategy is far from clear-cut now, and actually makes for an interesting part of the race. It's boring when the winner is obvious from the get go, it's exciting when it's in doubt up until the last few laps. Had Button not had a pit failure, he could have potentially given Rosberg a run for his money with a little luck.
 
Give 'em all great tyres, do away DRS and KERS, and throw a competition caution 5 laps from the end - cheaper, simpler, easier for the spectator and no less artificial than we have now.
 
niky
I like the tire game. It makes F1 interesting. What would make it even more interesting is gambles on "no pitstop" strategies... :D
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This. I'd abolish the "use both compounds at a race" rule and see what interesting strategies develop. Does a team want to do a 4-stop race using nothing but options? Let 'em. Some other team want to 1-stop with the primes? Why not?
 
TheBook
This. I'd abolish the "use both compounds at a race" rule and see what interesting strategies develop. Does a team want to do a 4-stop race using nothing but options? Let 'em. Some other team want to 1-stop with the primes? Why not?
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👍 It'd be great to see what weird strategies people would come up with, it'd be so much more unpredictable.
 
After two laps when he is in 8:th place Alonso will kick out the floor of his Ferrari and bring it home in first place Fred Flintstone style.
 
hawkeye122
Mercedes will be shot down by the tyres, unfortunately.

Why are the tyres PURPOSEFULLY designed to go away quickly and be fragile? I'd much rather have better tyres, and really see what the drivers can do. Back when the Bridgestones were used, Hamilton locked up the fronts much more frequently, and was able to pull some crazy moves. Now him and all of the other "Aggressive" drivers have to reel it in, just to keep them alive. I'd rather see a "Sprint" race, where you go hard for 40 laps, not what is becoming a very Endurance-Style tyre set-up. /rant
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The issues that Mercedes were having with the tyres were setup related. They could not get the tyres within the right operating window. Ross Brawn was quoted as saying that at one race they were too hard on the tyres so they wore too quickly and at the other they didn't generate enough heat into the tyres so they lacked grip (Not sure which was Australia and which was Malaysia - i'm guessing they didn't generate enough heat in Malaysia, with the rain).

In China they found the sweet spot after understanding the issues they were having, and the car performed excellently. In Bahrain it's anyones guess but the team have had 3 races to learn how to work the tyres best. The hot conditions and the unknown track surface (When using Pirelli tyres) is an issue for all of the teams, not just Mercedes.

EDIT: And just to add, I love the tyres strategy in F1. Whilst 2010 was a good year overall, the tyres lasting a full race distance really took a lot of strategy out of it for the frontrunners as they all had to follow eachother, whereas with the Pirellis you can one-up the competition by pitting a couple of laps early, or staying out longer and going to a 2-stop instead of a 3-stop.
 
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MatskiMonk
Give 'em all great tyres, do away DRS and KERS, and throw a competition caution 5 laps from the end - cheaper, simpler, easier for the spectator and no less artificial than we have now.
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I can't think of anything more artificial than a "competition caution". Besides attrition, it makes all the previous laps almost meaningless. Why not just have a 5 lap race if you are going to do that.

DRS is a bit artificial, but with KERS there is a lot more strategy involved with where and when the driver uses it, along with the changes to the balance of the car under braking (regenerative) and acceleration when it is used.

I think the mandatory use of both compounds is a bit artificial too, I would like to see someone try a "no-stopper".
 
MatskiMonk
Give 'em all great tyres, do away DRS and KERS, and throw a competition caution 5 laps from the end - cheaper, simpler, easier for the spectator and no less artificial than we have now.
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Are you Bernie from the F1slate?
 

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