All you need to know - 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix preview
Glimpsing into the Future: Can the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix Set the Tone for the Upcoming Formula 1 Season?
The Bahrain Grand Prix takes place on a circuit surrounded by the Sakhir desert. Wind can sometimes blow sand onto the track, affecting the grip levels during the sessions. The support races include Formula 2 and Formula 3, with the resulting rubber laid down influencing track evolution.
Being situated in a desert, you may expect sand to be an issue. However, the surrounding desert is sprayed with a sticky adhesive substance to minimize the amount of sand blowing on to the track.
The focus for the set-up of the car is on tuning it for low and medium-speed corners. This is because the high-speed sections of track are easily taken flat-out. But mechanical grip is crucial out of the slow corners. This is the opposite to the focus areas we have for tracks such as Silverstone, where high-speed corner performance is key.
2022 Pole Lap Telemetry (Speed) Bahrain is always a punishing track for the brakes, with seven braking events and three classified as ‘heavy’ by our engineers (which means the driver is braking for 0.4 seconds or longer, with 4G or more). As we found during pre-season testing, the Bahrain track has also got bumpier and the cars are not as smooth to drive, so that also makes braking trickier.
The trickiest corner on the track is Turn 10. It has a long, combined corner entry that tightens and drops away at the apex and is blind over a crest. Drivers have to apply the brakes while also completing the wide corner arc of Turn 9. All these factors mean the front-left tyre goes light and this increases the risk of a lock-up.
The new C1 makes its debut at the first race of the season in Sakhir. This year, Pirell has expanded the range of available compounds to six, with three still chosen for every race. The brand new C1 compound fills the gap between the hardest C0 (used as the C1 in 2022) and the C2, which is unchanged from last year.
At the Bahrain Grand Prix, C1 will be the P Zero White hard, C2 will be the P Zero Yellow medium and C3 will be the P Zero Red soft. The teams will have at their disposal two sets of hard tyres, three sets of mediums, and eights sets of soft per car, as well as the usual allocation of Cinturato intermediate and full wet tyres.
The track surface is made from a special aggregate that was shipped from a quarry in England. It is one of the roughest surfaces of the season.
Owing to the abrasiveness of the track, which is one of the roughest of the season, tyre degradation tends to be amongst the highest seen at any race across the calendar.
This abravise surface mainly places traction and braking demands on the tyres. The layout also requires a good level of stability at the rear of the car.
2022 Pole Lap Telemetry (Throttle) Paddock working hours have been reduced by one hour for 2023, with the third of three restricted periods (effective on Fridays) beginning earlier this year. There is therefore less time for operational personnel to work on the cars each weekend.
With more emphasis being on the pre-weekend preparations, this means correlation between the simulation tools and the track is crucial – making sure the simulation appropriately represents the real car. But the gap between the test and the race is much smaller compared to usual, making it tougher to understand the learnings from the test and bring those into the pre-race preparations.
The wide range of temperatures is a factor to take into consideration. Asphalt temperatures can reach 45 degrees centigrade during the day, dropping by at least 15 degrees as evening falls. FP2, qualifying and the race – which all begin at 18:00 – will therefore be run in very different conditions to the remaining sessions, which take place in the early afternoon.
Tyre degradation will be a key factor when it comes to deciding the strategy. Last season, all the drivers bar one stopped three times (rather than the anticipated two-stopper) due to a late-race safety car. The winner Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) carried out his first two stints on the soft, before swapping to the medium. The safety car allowed him to put the soft back on for the final run to the flag, ahead of his team mate Carlos Sainz.
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