2018 Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix Discussion Thread

[Paul Glover]

From Ferrari on Twitter

Apparently a shinbone and fibula fracture, our thoughts are with Francesco, stay strong #BahrainGP

 

[Koen Verlinde]

That was a very enjoyable Grand Prix. There was drama, performance, potential and unexpected results with lots of overtaking and no real safety car on a track that makes dogshit look interesting in comparison.

I like it a lot.

 

[Vincent.C]

Well done P. Gasly !

Vettel tyre management was amazing. But I don't understand : Soft (2018) <> Ultra Soft (2017).. It was possible to run more than 150km with purple tyres in 2017 ???

 

[davewilliams000]

Sorry but drop bottas and sign up Riccardo after that terrible performance bottas should have easily got vettel there at the end!

Othwr thoughts on the race:
Outstanding by Gasly
Thankfully FOM have fixed the graphics and just gone back to 3 letters of each driver and made the font bigger
Hope everyone in the US had a better viewing experience than the last one
Was a much better race than australia with interest right up to the end

 

[gamer19]

.
.
I thought this F1 Bahrain GP was one great race.


I was pretty happy, satisfied and feel good about myself, F1 and world in general.


Then it came MotoGP race in Argentina.

What a hell was THAT !?? OmG...

 

[Tberg]

Great race today! Shaping up to be a much more interesting season than 2017!

 

[gamer19]

Wait, are we STILL talking about F1 ?

Why ??

 

[stbreaker]

Winner: US television audience. Entire race presented commercial free. Guess ESPN figured we were owed after that mess last race. I don’t own any Mothers products right now, but I’m willing to have them take over my car care arsenal if they can keep this up.

Relatively entertaining race. It was nice to see the different strategies play out, though as usual, the tires turned out to be a little too hard to push any of the leaders out of 1 stopping. Ferrari obviously tried to split strategies with Kimi as a bit of a decoy, but we saw how that ended.

 

[paracletus]

Cracking race

 

[M-Bimmer]

Really...plan D

 

[Tberg]

So, Ferrari gets a €50.000 fine for unsafe release? Apparently, Ferrari gets penalized x10 of that of last race Haas unsafe releases (2x€5000).
That's bloody harsh, considering they lost 3rd and a mechanic got his leg snapped to pieces!!! After a great race, the FIA race stewards once again degrade the experience, nicely done
Just pause that at 00:05....ouch!
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/...ed-big-fine-for-raikkonen-unsafe-release.html

Hope the mechanic gets well and get back in the crew sometime soon.

One more time: lose 3rd place, snap a leg by accident on one of your teammembers, then pay €50.000....that sounds like maFIA methods!

Meanwhile, go MAG, 5th yay!

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Do you not think that the Ferrari release was 10x more dangerous than the Haas ones? I don't understand your logic, unless you are a blinkered Ferrari fan

 

[Tberg]

Do you not think that the Ferrari release was 10x more dangerous than the Haas ones? I don't understand your logic, unless you are a blinkered Ferrari fan

I'm not. But 50.000 is 10 times more than 5.000, yes?

 

[Fat-Alfie]

It is. And I think that their unsafe release was 10x more dangerous, so it is a fair fine. Sorry if I misunderstood your previous comment.

 

[Tberg]

It is. And I think that their unsafe release was 10x more dangerous, so it is a fair fine. Sorry if I misunderstood your previous comment.

In terms of the mechanic getting injured, yes it was more dangerous. That should've been penalty enough in itself, then a €5000 fine as each Haas racer got. Kimi didn't even drive 100meters

 

[davewilliams000]

In terms of the mechanic getting injured, yes it was more dangerous. That should've been penalty enough in itself, then a €5000 fine as each Haas racer got. Kimi didn't even drive 100meters

Yes it's because there was an injury they got a much bigger fine as they endangered personell...
"The incident was the second of its kind over the weekend for the Finn, who was also forced to stop in second practice with a loose wheel....
Having reviewed the incident, the FIA race stewards in Bahrain handed Ferrari a €50,000 fine for releasing Raikkonen's car ‘in a manner endangering team personnel and causing injury’...
Bahrain marks the third Grand Prix in the last four seasons that Raikkonen has retired from as a result of unsafe release. An unwelcome statistic indeed" (from F1 website).
Think Ferrari need to be looking at their pit procedures and the system for giving the driver the green light. They clearly need to make improvements to stop this from happening again.
Maybe the pit system is one of the things Haas purchases from Ferrari

 

[Tberg]

Yes it's because there was an injury they got a much bigger fine as they endangered personell...
"The incident was the second of its kind over the weekend for the Finn, who was also forced to stop in second practice with a loose wheel....
Having reviewed the incident, the FIA race stewards in Bahrain handed Ferrari a €50,000 fine for releasing Raikkonen's car ‘in a manner endangering team personnel and causing injury’...
Bahrain marks the third Grand Prix in the last four seasons that Raikkonen has retired from as a result of unsafe release. An unwelcome statistic indeed" (from F1 website).
Think Ferrari need to be looking at their pit procedures and the system for giving the driver the green light. They clearly need to make improvements to stop this from happening again.
Maybe the pit system is one of the things Haas purchases from Ferrari

I guess noboby on the crew will use their leg as a wheelstopper in the future. Better keep clear at all times during the stop.

 

[gamer19]

Maybe the pit system is one of the things Haas purchases from Ferrari

Yeah, I'm sure that's what Alonso and some other teams were complaining about.

 

[davewilliams000]

Sorry but drop bottas and sign up Riccardo after that terrible performance bottas should have easily got vettel there at the end!

Othwr thoughts on the race:
Outstanding by Gasly
Thankfully FOM have fixed the graphics and just gone back to 3 letters of each driver and made the font bigger
Hope everyone in the US had a better viewing experience than the last one
Was a much better race than australia with interest right up to the end

Maybe that was a little reactionary comment right after watching the end of the race, but I think to some extent Bottas is proving he's not as good as everyone thought he could be. Yes, he is good, but not on the level of the top 3 drivers, by which of course I refer to Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso. I do not rate Verstappen in that category yet as he does make too many mistakes (although that incident with Hamilton was a racing incident as neither of them backed off although I blame max 60-40) and needs to mature a bit as a driver. When you look at Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso when they came to F1 they immediately were at the top level (Hamilton matching Alonso in the Mclaren, Vettel winning that race at Monza in the Torro Rosso, Alonso putting a Minardi where it shouldn't have been), and Bottas is just lacking a little bit of something I think.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

I agree, the Mercedes is flattering Bottas at the moment. He is a safe pair of hands, but little else. I don't agree, however, that the 'top 3' came into F1 as complete drivers. All three showed their immaturity in their earlier years. Hamilton, especially, has transformed from a fast hot-head into a much more rational, mature driver. Alonso too, shows a lot more thought and respect for his follow drivers than he used to. Sadly, I think Vettel is still on that journey...