So after the excitement and exhilaration of China, we find ourselves heading to the Kingdom of Bahrain for the first grand prix there since 2010.  Let's take a look at the track map.

As you can see, it's a Hermann Tilke track, carved out of the desert like a bunker carved out of a hillside.  Unlike some Tilkedromes, like Malaysia or China, this one doesn't really have much in the way of a personality.  There's no long, long double straightaways like Malaysia, no hope of a great race like we've had three years running at China.  However, the huge run-off areas do give wonderful fields of fire for the soldiers to gun down protesters from the drivers a sense of confidence that a single mistake won't cost them the race.

This is not a good thing.  There should be some penalty for making an error, but in Bahrain, there's nothing of the sort.  The minefields are beyond the grandstands.

There's no elevation change to speak of, so the tanks can't go hull-down race just feels endless... everything looks the same.  Turn 9 feels like Turn 4, except that one has a machine-gun nest and the other a mortar position leading me to wonder just how the drivers keep their concentration.  It's a mystery to me.

As it is, the good folks at SPEED will be bringing us their usual sterling coverage of the riots entire race weekend.  Here's the schedule:

FRIDAY:
P1: 2a-330a streaming
P2: 6a-740a live
SATURDAY:
P3: 3a-4a streaming
Quals: 6a-730a plausibly live
SUNDAY:
Grand Prix of Bahrain: 630a - 9a live

While all of us here at F1Update! Central believe that the sport we love is making a terrible mistake by running this race, we feel it's our duty to our readers to provide the "excellent" writeups that we bring to any F1 weekend.  If they're racin', we're watchin'.

We'll see you then.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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