April 03, 2016

F1 Update: Bahrain 2016

The desert sun had mostly set on the Sakhir International Circuit as the polesitter Lewis Hamilton led his teammate Nico Rosberg and the rest of the Thundering Herd on the recon lap just before the race start, but all was clearly not right with one of the drivers.  What happened?  Would it affect the second race of the season?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2016 Grand Prix of Bahrain!

*KABLAMMO:  As the field made its way to the grid, it became clear that the Ferrari of Seb Vettel was in some distress, judging from the line of sparks it was emitting.  Soon enough, however, those sparks became a mosquito-killing cloud as the engine completely let go.  He pulled off-circuit, day done before he could even turn a lap.

Last week, it was a fiery turbo failure that ended Kimi Raikkonen's race.  Was this a similar failure, or something more?

*LIGHTS OUT:  Like in Australia, Lewis Hamilton had a terrible start, immediately losing the lead to Nico Rosberg ,then getting run over by the Williams of Valterri Bottas in Turn 1.  He'd end up in sixth place by the end of the first lap, and Bottas would be given a drive-through penalty.  As the lap continued, we saw bodywork and pieces of front wing flying off of a plethora of cars as a half-dozen drivers forgot they weren't driving in NASCAR and "rubbin' is racin'" doesn't work in open-wheel.  Within a few more laps, Jenson Button's McLaren had come to a stop on-track and the Haas of Esteban! was retired in the pits with a brake problem.  To say the least, one of the more frantic starts to a race we've seen in a while.

*LONG DAYS AHEAD:  Up at the front, Nico Rosberg's Mercedes was hitting on all cylinders.  By the time all the front runners had made their first stops, he had an 11 second lead over Kimi Raikkonen and 20 seconds on Hamilton, and looked very much like he'd not be headed... either today or for the rest of the season, if things continued on like this.

*AGGRESSIVE:  Meanwhile, Lettuce Grosjean and Haas had decided to throw the normal operating manual in the trash and gamble on tires.  Able to choose what sort of rubber they would start the race on, everybody expected them to go with the long-running medium compound, outlast the other cars, and advance via making few pitstops than everybody else.  Instead, when the lights went out Lettuce was clad in the same super-soft tires as Hamilton, Rosberg, Raikkonen, and the others up front.  More surprising was that Haas kept him on the super-softs after the first stop.  While this did allow him to pass Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo for fourth place on Lap 25, it didn't seem like the best strategy ever.  Heads must've been shaking up and down the pit lane when Haas pitted a couple of laps later, emerging once again on super-soft rubber.

*MEANWHILE:  Up front, Rosberg had opened his lead to 16 seconds over the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, and nearly 50 seconds over Lewis Hamilton on Lap 30.  While the lead would shrink as the end approached, that was less because Rosberg was being threatened and more because Mercedes told him to reduce stress on his power unit. 

*IN THE END:  The last 20-odd laps were actually fairly dull, a startling contrast to the first 30 or so interesting ones.  Rosberg won the race by nearly 11 seconds, with Raikkonen finishing second.  Third went to Hamilton, a half-minute behind his teammate.  That was still a half-minute ahead of the fourth place finisher, Red Bull's Ricciardo.

*IRON HAAS: After three sets of super-softs, Grosjean finished the race on a set of soft tires.  While the fresh rubber let him begin to close in on Ricciardo for fourth, the faster super-softs allowed Embryo Verstappen's Toro Rosso to make a furious charge at the American car.  If the race went 60 laps, he probably would have caught and passed Lettuce... but the race ended after 57.  Once again, the new team on the grid finished way up in the standings, even improving on their debut race... amazing results.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

"Five in a row, Lewis, five in a row... ties you in 2014, doesn't it?  Why yes, yes it does.  Fancy that!" - Nico Rosberg

"mrmrrblmrrr  mrrlrrlrlrbrl  mrmrmrmrmrblblbl mrmrbrbl." - Kimi Raikkonen

"Sorry, busy snapchatting, what?" - Lewis Hamilton

"*grin*" - Daniel Ricciardo 

"This is the American Dream." - Lettuce Grosjean (note: real quote)

Two weeks from now, China beckons.  We'll see you then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 772 words, total size 5 kb.

1

Rosberg drove a picture-perfect race, but I do have to wonder whether it would have been so easy if Hamilton hadn't been kicked in the teeth by lady-luck.

Hamilton was complaining about the rear of his car on the radio after the collision. He still was able to do really well, but between the time he lost in the collision and his car not being ideal, it seems like he could have done better.

Of course, lady luck was kicking a lot of people today, most notably Vettel...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 04, 2016 12:22 AM (+rSRq)

2 Hamilton put himself in position to be kicked in the teeth by his second bad start in a row.  While Bottas got the penalty, Hamilton wouldn't have been in that position if he could figure out how to work a clutch paddle correctly.

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 04, 2016 12:58 AM (KiM/Y)

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