After two rain-lashed grands prix in Malaysia and China, Bahrain should provide the first opportunity since the season-opener to gauge F1’s competitive state of play in dry conditions, as well as the effectiveness of rule changes designed to promote overtaking.
Factor in the circuit layout, the intense competition seen in Friday practice and the tendency of the Sakhir track to pick up grip dramatically, and itv.com/f1 columnist James Allen says both qualifying and the race should make for thrilling viewing.I think this is going to be a really terrific grand prix, provided that it takes place in sunny, benign conditions like we had today, rather than the sand storm which is predicted for Sunday.
Rain you can deal with, although when it gets too heavy as it did in Malaysia, then you have to call it off. Sand will stop play, as it did in the pre-season test here.
Why do I think the race will be so good? Well, because this is a track where overtaking is not only possible, it is common.
We have several cars using the KERS system, so that will promote overtaking even more, as will the adjustable front wings, which the drivers haven’t really had a chance to use yet in races because there wasn’t anywhere to use it in Melbourne and the other two races were wet.
I think a lot will use it through the final corner here and then have a go down the long straight into turn one.
The only snag is that the cars get hot following in the slipstream of other cars and so after a while they have to drop back so as not to overheat water temperatures. Early attacks are advised.
Another reason why things are well set up is that the tyres seem to be working well here for most people.
It is the super-soft and the medium again, but the super-soft seems to holding on longer than it has at other venues.
Ferrari had a bit of a problem with getting them to last over a long run today, but Brawn and Red Bull had no problems and that means there won’t be too many people who have to run odd races where they only do six laps on the soft tyre or something like that.
Teams who are not confident on the soft tyre may well start the race on the harder ones, but plenty of people can plan for a normal race with fairly equal stints – and that means that we should get a good idea of what the pecking order is.
The track ramps up a lot here, perhaps as much as any track we visit. Between the first and second sessions it improved by at least a second, some teams say 1.2s.
But it isn’t consistent; it goes up and down, so it’s all about timing.
Qualifying should be amazing, with the track improving all the time.
Drivers will want to get a banker lap in at the start of each session, but it will be the second lap at the end which will really count, so the track will get very busy and we should have some good drama.
One engineer said to me about the finishing order of today’s session: “The only thing certain is the uncertainty.”
His point is that many drivers took some fuel out today to set their fastest times and some tried new tyres.
Three-tenths of a second can separate six or seven cars and three-tenths represents only 10kg of fuel, so it’s very hard to say who is where.
However, from what I saw today and from what I’ve been able to glean since, Brawn is back to enjoying an advantage here, with Red Bull looking like the team most likely to challenge.
Toyota was expected to be strong but Jarno Trulli ran quite light to set his time today, so he’s not where it appears from looking at the times.
That said, he’s an exceptional qualifier and I expect him to be in the top five tomorrow.
The Brawn’s weakness is in single-lap qualifying with low fuel but with high fuel and in long runs it’s clearly the quickest car here.
Shanghai suited Red Bull because the car is very good in fast corners, but this track is all about mid-speed corner entry and exit and that is where the Brawn is fantastic.
Of the rest, Renault has an update on front wing and front suspension which has given them a little but more and Fernando Alonso believes he can qualify and race in the top five or six.
Williams obviously are there or thereabouts again, but desperately need to capitalise on their advantage while they have it.
As for McLaren and Ferrari, it seems that McLaren are developing at an impressive rate, getting closer to the pace.
They are 0.6s off the Brawn at the moment, so they’ve not quite halved the deficit since the start of the season but they are well on their way.
Ferrari doesn’t seem to have moved forward, but then they haven’t got anything new on the car here. Barcelona has to be a significant step forward for them.
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