Get Ahead of the Race! Essential Info for the 2025 Bahrain GP
The 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix will be the fourth race of the Formula 1 World Championship season.
McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri won the first two races at Australia and China, respectively. Meanwhile, Red Bull hit back with Max Verstappen winning the Japanese GP from Pole Position.
The title race seems to be between those three at the minute, and McLaren might come into Bahrain with a pace advantage. After the three-day preseason test in Bahrain, the paddock talked wonders of the McLaren car, but it seems that its advantage isn't as huge as most media narratives suggest.
Red Bull should be able to give a proper fight in Bahrain if the car can make the tyres last, and that was certainly the case in Suzuka, although with quite different weather conditions.
Can Mercedes (George Russell and Kimi Antonelli) or Ferrari (Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton) produce contending performances in Bahrain? It's unlikely, but the German team has shown some potential this year, while Ferrari could be poised to solve the SF-25 issues this weekend.
Last year, Red Bull dominated in Bahrain, and the team could certainly come out of Sunday's race with Verstappen leading the World Drivers' Championship. Currently, Norris leads Verstappen by one point, with Piastri lurking 13 points behind.
2025 Bahrain GP Facts & Figures
The 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix will be the 21st edition of the race and it will not be the season-opening event for the first time since 2020.
The first Bahrain Grand Prix in Formula 1 history came in 2004, with Michael Schumacher winning the race for Ferrari. The Bahrain round was the season-opener of a Formula 1 season six times, after hosting the first race in 2006, 2010, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
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 2022, and his teammate Carlos Sainz completed a 1-2 for the Maranello-based team, ahead of Mercedes' Hamilton. Last year, Max Verstappen won for Red Bull (his first win in a season-opener) and led a comfortable 1-2 for the team, with Sergio Pérez second.
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, followed by Mercedes with six and Red Bull with four triumphs.
Max Verstappen has won the last two editions.
Bahrain International Circuit
The Bahrain International Circuit is a facility with six different layouts. Five of those have received Grade One recognition from the FIA. Since 2004, 18 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.
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 Max Verstappen's Red Bull RB20 was a 1:29.179 min lap. In the race, the Fastest was a 1:32.608 min lap by Verstappen as well.
This year's race will be the 22nd F1 Grand Prix in Bahrain, including the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix in the 'Outer Circuit' layout.
2025 Bahrain Grand Prix - Tyres
The dry tyres for the 57 laps of the 2025 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 press release: "Temperature will be a very important variable when it comes to tyre management at the fourth race of the year.
As was the case in Suzuka, the teams will have a choice of the three hardest compounds in Pirelli’s 2025 range, namely the C1 as Hard, the C2 as Medium and the C3 as Soft. However, the Sakhir track characteristics and indeed the temperatures, will require a different approach to that adopted last week in Japan.
In fact, all the teams will have a good baseline from which to start work, given that in the last week of February, the Sakhir circuit hosted the only pre-season test as per the 2025 sporting regulations. It means that everyone will have plenty of data to work with when it comes to setting up the cars and choosing the best strategies for qualifying and the race.
Over 24 hours of track time, the 20 drivers racked up 3,897 laps, equivalent to 21,090.564 kilometres and the tyres to be used this weekend did the most work back then: the C3 did the lion’s share, completing 67.17% of the laps, followed by the C2 (20.88%) and the C1 (9.26%).
There were a measly 104 laps run on the C4 and three on the Intermediate. However, this weekend’s temperatures will present a new challenge, because during the test week, Sakhir saw unusual weather with strong winds leading to much cooler air and track temperatures than is normal at that time of year.
The minimum start pressures for this weekend have changed based on analysis of the test data, to 23 psi on the front and 21 at the rear. That represents an increase of +1 on the front axle and +2 on the rear compared to the 2024 race and of 0.5 psi on both axles compared to February’s test."
2025 Bahrain Grand Prix - Weather Forecast
Friday, April 11th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Mainly clear
Max. temperature: 24°C
Chance of rain: 1%
Saturday, April 12th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 24°C
Chance of rain: 0%
Sunday, April 13th - Race
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 23°C
Chance of rain: 0%
Who will be on the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix podium?
SUZUKA, JAPAN - APRIL 06: Second placed Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing and Third placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Japan at Suzuka Circuit on April 06, 2025 in Suzuka, Japan. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images) // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool // SI202504060246 // Usage for editorial use only //
Could we see a fourth different winner in as many races of the 2025 Formula 1 season? Let us bet on that one.
Let's assume that either Ferrari has solved its aerodynamic issues with their current package or that the team has unlocked potential with the reported new floor. That could definitely bring Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton into contention for Sunday.
However, Mercedes seem to be the safest bet for Sunday's win if anyone other than Red Bull or McLaren will see the chequered flag first.
While it is unlikely, let's go for it. Mercedes will win the 2025 Bahrain GP.
The prediction for the top three of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix is 1. Kimi Antonelli, 2. George Russell, 3. Max Verstappen.
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