But for many other drivers and their teams, Bahrain wasn’t much to write home about. I’m not talking about the three new teams, out of whom only one made the full race distance, but everybody.
Jenson Button admitted after the race that in the opening laps he was looking after his tyres and not pushing as hard, so as to prevent any problems occurring. And he also said that when he was told to come in for his stop, he had just started to push and was closing in on Webber. The point being that when it mattered, the tyres were more of a concern than making up a place, and pushing wasn’t exactly on the agenda.
That aside, and this is where all that we have learnt on F101 comes into play when reviewing the Bahrain Grand Prix…
The refuelling ban, and the fact that the teams only made one pitstop, has ultimately meant that the drivers are taking extra care of their tyres so that additional trips to the pits are avoided. While there could have been plenty of opportunities for the drivers to make passes at Bahrain, they simply didn’t push it as getting in the dirty air of another car doesn’t help the cars or their tyres.
At the start of the race, Hamilton was pushing to regain the fourth place that Rosberg had taken off him after he’d run wide trying to pass Massa for third on the first lap at turn four. Hamilton was within a second of Rosberg in the first stint, but when the rear super-soft tyres started to degrade, he backed off a bit, instead of continuing to push. He eventually passed Rosberg, but it wasn’t on track: it was simply by no fault of Nico’s but a pure advantage to Lewis that Rosberg was delayed out of his pitbox while Button passed to make his own stop.
Even Fernando Alonso backed off from Vettel in the final half of the race. Alonso had got the gap to the Red Bull down to a second, but due to being in the dirty air, and the car at the maximum temperature, he backed off. When Vettel eventually suffered a faulty spark plug that saw him start to lose pace, Alonso was then able to make his move, with little effort.
What may strike many as odd then is that Alonso backed off, but just a second ahead was an extra seven points, an extra seven points that is supposed to be seen as an incentive to drivers to make passes. Alonso eventually passed Vettel, but had it not been for a faulty spark plug, would Vettel have taken the win?
Aside from the passes made on Vettel at the end of the race, and the positions jostled at the start, Hamilton made the only pass for position: but even that was to pass Barrichello who hadn’t yet pitted, when Lewis already had.
So that’s the passing and the tyres bit out of the way, what about the Ferrari engine changes, and Hamilton’s overheating brakes?
Both Alonso and Massa had their engines changed ahead of the race. Ferrari said this was a precautionary measure, but what is worth remembering, is that for both drivers they are now on their second engines, have only completed one race, and an engine should last for roughly two or three races. This of course is because each driver has an allocation of eight engines per season, and the ninth and subsequent engines there after will incur a ten place grid drop penalty. This means both Ferrari’s need their engines to last now for more than three races to get back in line and steer clear of such a penalty. Ferrari may get the chance to use these engines again for both their drivers, but only for the last race of the season, so it is a slight concern for both Alonso and Massa that should their engines need to be changed again in the next few races, and so on, come the end of the season both drivers may see themselves issued with a grid penalty.
All these points mean that both Alonso and Massa may well be driving more carefully throughout the season to protect their engines. There are an extra two rounds this season to last year as it is, so all the teams will be aware of this, and this is another factor that goes someway to explaining the ‘dullness’ of this weekend’s race. Rob Smedley, Massa’s race engineer reminded him of the fact his engine needs to last a few more races yet, so is this just another regulation forcing the teams to ‘play safe’ on track? We certainly haven’t seen the drivers pushing beyond the boundaries. Yet.
During the race, both rear brakes on Hamilton’s car overheated. At the time Hamilton was advised to change the brake balance to shift it more to the front brakes than the rears to help prevent them from overheating too much. As it is, the brakes are set up so that the front brakes do around 58% of the work, so by increasing that percentage, the pressure was taken off the rears. However by doing this, the front brakes have more to do, and with the weight of the extra fuel, that is a lot more to slow down. Luckily for Hamilton, all was fine…
So the Sakhir circuit may not be the most exciting one, but the sport is back, and for any Ferrari fans, Alonso, Massa, Hamilton or Schumacher fans, that is something at least. I wouldn’t exactly label the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix as boring, but the new regulations have certainly changed the way things work. Whether it is just the circuit, or whether the regulations are more to blame, we can only wait and see over the next few races. Even if it is the new rules that are causing the teams to be more cautious, as the races continue, they may start to relax more as more data is gathered, and more is learnt over race distances…
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