Everything you need to know about the 2023 Bahrain F1 Grand Prix

Formula 1 is back this weekend with the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, which kicks off the 2023 World Championship of Constructors and Drivers!

What will be the 2023 pecking order?

As always, there are intriguing storylines regarding the season-opening race. Mainly, the pecking order is the topic of discussion before the first race of the year, and the three-day pre-season test at the same venue as the first GP might be a good way to guess where each team stands.

However, it isn't always quite clear, and the first and possibly the only conclusion that comes out of the three-day testing is that Red Bull could be the clear-cut favorite to dominate once again, perhaps even more than last year.

The team, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, should again be looking at winning the World Drivers' and Constructors' titles, plus adding an unprecedented 1-2 in the WDC for the Milton Keynes squad.

The Red Bull RB19 side to side with the Ferrari SF-23

Obviously, Ferrari should still be a team to consider, given the good base the team had to work on from last year. Last year's race-winning car should definitely help in creating an improved version for 2023, and Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz definitely hope that the SF-23 is just that, although a title charge could still be difficult to imagine, given Red Bull's RB19 being favored by many.

Mercedes and its drivers (Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell) might be happy that the W14 doesn't look as unstable as last year's W13 did from the start, but not many are expecting the team to have a solid first part of the season, with several analysts even putting Aston Martin close or even ahead of the German team in the early, testing-based expectations for the first race.

Of course, comments coming out of the Mercedes' camp have suggested that the team considers the car a good base and perhaps a good leap from last year.

Injured Lance Stroll

Lance Stroll (2023)

Aston Martin will have another World Champion on one of its cars on Sunday, with Fernando Alonso joining the team, but Lance Stroll might not be there due to injuries sustained in a bicycle accident. The team's reserve driver, Felipe Drugovich, might be behind the wheel for the weekend, but nothing has been confirmed as of now. The Brazilian, the reigning FIA F2 champion, drove in the pre-season testing for Aston Martin and could be well-suited for the AMR23 car.

In the rest of the expected midfield, AlphaTauri (Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck De Vries) completed the most laps, with the AT04 completing 456 laps at Bahrain. Williams was second in terms of laps, with Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant putting up 439 laps behind the wheel of the FW45.

Haas' VF-23 produced 414 with Kevin Magnussen and the returning Niko Hulkenberg. Alfa Romeo (Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas) went for 402 laps and even topped the clock with Zhou behind the wheel of the C43 on Day 2. The team struggled a bit with reliability but is expected to have a solid start to the year.

Alpine (Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly) and McLaren (Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri) fought hard last year for P4 in the World Constructors Championship but had a quiet pre-season testing in 2023, putting up 353 and 312 laps, respectively. Both teams have been a bit underwhelming for analysts, but we could expect the A523 (Alpine) and the McLaren MCL60 to be decent midfield runners again (though McLaren has been cautious ahead of the season-opener).

2023 Bahrain GP Facts & Figures

The first Bahrain Grand Prix in Formula 1 history came in 2004, with Michael Schumacher winning the race for Ferrari. The Bahrain round will be the season-opener of a Formula 1 season for the fifth time, after hosting the first race of the 2006, 2010, 2021, and 2022 seasons.

Fernando Alonso followed Schumacher’s win in 2004 with two straight triumphs in 2005 and 2006 for Renault. Then, Ferrari returned to victory in Bahrain, with Felipe Massa taking consecutive wins in 2007 and 2008.

Jenson Button won for Brawn GP in 2009, while Alonso won in his Ferrari debut in 2010, in the Endurance layout of the circuit. The 2011 race was canceled due to social issues, before Vettel and Red Bull took wins in 2012 and 2013.

Hamilton won in Bahrain in 2014 after a stunning fight with his then Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton won again in 2015, while Rosberg succeeded in 2016.

Vettel won for Ferrari in 2017 and 2018 before Hamilton and Mercedes struck back with three consecutive wins from 2019 to 2021. Charles Leclerc won for Ferrari from Pole in F1's new era in 2022, and his teammate Carlos Sainz completed a 1-2 for the Maranello-based team, ahead of Mercedes' Hamilton.

In the 2020 race, Haas’ former driver, Romain Grosjean, had a miraculous escape after a crash in the first lap of the race that luckily ended with the Frenchman suffering only burns on his hands and not something worse.

Among drivers, Hamilton leads the table in terms of victories in Bahrain with five, while Ferrari sits at the top amongst teams with seven wins in Bahrain, after breaking a tie with Mercedes last year.

Bahrain International Track info

The Bahrain International Circuit is a facility with six different layouts. Five of those have received Grade One recognition from the FIA. Since 2004, 17 races have taken place in the Grand Prix layout, and the 2010 event was held in the Endurance, 6.299 km layout.

The Grand Prix layout has 15 corners and is 5.412 km long. The track will have three DRS zones. The zones will be in the main straight, the straight that unites turns three and four, and the back straight between turns 10 and 11.

The track has given us some exciting races in the past and the DRS zones usually allow defending drivers to enter corners mostly alongside the DRS-powered cars, which is a perfect situation for close, wheel-to-wheel racing.

For 2023, there will be certain adjustments to DRS zones in order to create easier overtaking opportunities or to make it harder in the first five tracks of the calendars, as the FIA announced recently.

The fastest lap around the Bahrain International Circuit was 1:31.447 min in the 2005 race, by Pedro de la Rosa in the McLaren MP4-20, while the fastest lap in any session took place in the 2020 qualifying session, when Hamilton did a 1:27.264 min lap.

Last year's Pole Position time from Charles Leclerc's Ferrari F1-75 was a 1:30.558 min lap.

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 57 laps of the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix will be the C1 as P Zero White hard, C2 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C3 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli explained their view ahead of the first race of the year with a statement from Motorsport Director Mario Isola in a press release: “The first race of the championship will be an important test bench to validate all the development work we have carried out last year, which allowed us to further improve the structure of the tyres and introduce a new compound.

Our latest C1 will make its debut at Sakhir: an entirely new compound based on last year’s C2, which allows us to reduce the performance gap between the harder compounds in the range. We expect it to be a valid option for the race this weekend as well. The ‘undercut’ is often pivotal to the Bahrain Grand Prix, so it will be interesting to see how the teams make use of this new element in the trio of compounds that are nominated for Sakhir.”

Moreover, Pirelli explained its new range of tyres for 2023 and how the allocation will work in the new campaign: "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 minimum starting pressures will be 21.0 psi (front) and 18.5 psi (rear).

2023 Bahrain Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, Mar 3rd - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 25°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Saturday, Mar 4th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 27°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Sunday, Mar 5th - Race
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 28°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Who will be on the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix podium?

Charles Leclerc wins the 2022 Bahrain F1 GP podium: 1. Leclerc, 2. Sainz & 3. Hamilton

Many expect Red Bull to be comfortably ahead in the first race of the season, but there can be a fight at the top come race day. Ferrari has had the best car in Bahrain in almost every race since 2017 (except in 2020 and 2021) and the Maranello-based team could again be fighting for a win on Sunday.

Still, Max Verstappen and Red Bull are the betting favourites to win the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, and our prediction will actually follow what the oddsmakers suggest for the upcoming weekend, with Leclerc and Hamilton following the Dutchman, at least in the first GP of the calendar.

The prediction for the top three of the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix is 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Charles Leclerc, 3. Lewis Hamilton.

✅ Check out more posts with related topics: