What to expect from the 2019 Bahrain F1 GP?

This Sunday sparks will fly around at the second race of the 2019 season in Bahrain. The Bahrain International circuit again will be used, this track is located in the desert. The race itself will be driving during the twilight zone and finishes in complete darkness. The tarmac will be light-up with hundereds of floodlights.

After the first race in Australia Ferrari had a hard time explaining to do on why they couldn't catch up with the Red Bull and Mercedes' race pace. A lot of people also didn't understand their chosen race strategy. Charles Leclerc had enough time to do a pit stop for fresh tyres to attack the fastest lap for the extra point. But Ferrari's official press release said that they didn't want to risk their 5th place point finish. Red Bull Racing and especially Mercedes did a very good job with Valtteri Bottas in Melbourne and already have their first 1-2 finish in the bag for this season. Max Verstappen did a very strong overtake on Vettel on the track with his Honda powered RB15. Both Red Bull's even recorded the highest top speed during the race!

Red Bull-Honda is looking very strong and Ferrari made corrections for Bahrain. Last year Red Bull had a nightmare weekend with both cars retired after only 3 laps. Toro Rosso finished a very strong 4th place. Can they do that again? What to expect from this second race in 2019? The upcoming race will be the 15th Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix and the second race of the 2019 F1 season.

2019 Bahrain GP facts & Figures

The first Bahrain Grand Prix was held in 2004 and won by Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari F2004. The first race was held in daylight. The first dark race was driven 2014.

Driver Victories
Sebastian Vettel is the most successful driver in Bahrain. He scored 4 victories and 1 second place and 3 poles in Bahrain. Fernando Alonso is second with 3 wins and 1 pole. 3rd best is Lewis Hamilton with 2 wins, 2 second places and 3 third place finishes.. The driver that won most podiums in Sakhir is Kimi Raikkonen. The Finnish driver won 8 podiums: 5x 2nd and 3x 3rd place. Best qualifier is again Lewis Hamilton with an average grid position of 3.6, while Vettel scores a 4.7.

Team Victories
Most team successes are made by Ferrari in Bahrain. They won 9 podiums out of the 14 races they attended. Scuderia Ferrari won 6 times, had six 2nd places and 1 third place finish. Mercedes won here 3 times and scored 5 poles in 8 races, while Ferrari scored 4. Red Bull Racing is the 3rd most successful team with 2 victories and 2 poles. Renault also won 2 times in the Bahrain Desert and is fourth best.

All this info can be found on our Bahrain Grand Prix page.

Bahrain International Circuit

The Bahrain circuit is driven clock-wise. It nowadays has 3 DRS zones to make overtaking more easy on the 5.412 km long track. The track has 15 corners, 9 right-handed and 6 left-handed corners. The slowest corners are turn 1 & 10 which are taken with a speed of 90 km/h. The fastest corner is turn 12, which is taken flat-out with 280 km/h.

The official lap record of 1:31.447 min is set by a not very known driver Pedro de la Rosa back in 2005. De la Rosa was reserve driver and had to stand in for Juan Pablo Montoya during the race. Last year the fastest lap was driven by Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes W09. He drove a 1:33.740 min.

2019 Bahrain Grand Prix Infographic

What happened in last years 2018 Bahrain F1 GP?

Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel & Lewis Hamilton 2018 podium winners Bahrain

Sebastian Vettel won the 2018 Bahrain F1 GP. It was his 49th F1 race win and the 4th time he won the Bahrain F1 race.

The Bahrain Grand Prix started without any incident. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was able to pass the Ferrari of Raikkonen at the start of the race with no incidents in the first corner. In the second corner Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg hit the Haas car of Kevin Magnussen and Kevin had to leave the track. In the 3rd corner Sergio Pérez spun his Force India VJM11 because he got hit by Brendon Hartley's Toro Rosso STR13.

In the second lap of the race Red Bull driver Max Verstappen passed Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, but they touched, Verstappen got a puncture and had to limp back to the pit. At the same time Daniel Ricciardo had to retire his RB14 and caused a VSR (Virtual Safety Car) period. During this VSR the car of Ricciardo was pushed behind the barriers.

Vettel managed to drive much longer on the soft tyres than everybody thought and was able to keep Bottas behind in the last laps who was only 0,7 sec. behind.

Bahrain F1 GP 2019 Tyres

The Bahrain Grand Prix starts in the late afternoon at 6pm and ends in the evening under the floodlights: one of only three races that rely on artificial light. It is a track that has produced some tense strategic battles in the past, over a challenging circuit. The three hardest compounds in Pirelli’s range (C1, C2 and C3) make up the hard, medium and soft nominations respectively – coloured white, yellow and red as usual this year.

• The track surface at Bahrain is very abrasive, having originally been build using granite from England: one of the reasons why the hardest compounds are selected.
• Track temperatures can fall quite dramatically as the race heads into the evening. This can have an effect on strategy as well, by lengthening the stints.
• A one-stopper was the winning strategy last year in Bahrain, although most drivers stopped twice. The race came down a highly tactical battle, with many drivers completing long stints.
• Bahrain is all about acceleration, braking and traction rather than fast corners, and it is a rear-limited track – making it important to look after the rear tyres.
• The late afternoon race and qualifying means that FP2 is the only directly relevant free practice session, so the majority of simulation work will be compressed into those 90 minutes.

Selected sets for the 2019 Bahrain F1 GP

Bahrain GP Weather Forecast

The weather forecast at Bahrain is always the same. We never had rain here, but this year we will see some more clouds then normal around the dry and sandy circuit.

Friday, March 29th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Sunny with clear sky
Max. temperature: 26°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Saturday, March 30th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Sunny with partly cloudy
Max. temperature: 26°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Sunday, March 31th - Race
Conditions: Sunny with partly cloudy
Maxi. temperature: 31°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Who will be on the 2019 Bahrain F1 GP podium?

The real performance of the 2019 cars were a mystery before the 1st race in Melbourne. We now know that Mercedes is very strong again and that Red Bull outperformed Ferrari and even could put pressure on Hamilton. The circuit characteristics of Melbourne are very different then the Sakhir circuit.

This track isn't one of Hamilton's favourite circuits, but seems to be one of Bottas' favourites. Sebastian Vettel also is normally very quick around the desert track. Vettel and Ferrari will be very eager to close the gap to 1st place in the championship and need to perform well to keep their championship aspirations alive.

Red Bull Racing will also be quick around here. Pierre Gasly's confidence will be high in Bahrain after his 4th place finish last year in the Toro Rosso. Max Verstappen hasn't scored any podium yet in Bahrain. The Dutchman scored 6 podiums in a row since the Japanese F1 GP and certainly will try to hold on to this strong performance.

We could be up for a totally different podium with Bottas, Gasly and Leclerc. Online betting will still hard, but looking at the statistics of earlier races and the car/driver performances in Australia, our podium prediction for the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix is:
1. Valtteri Bottas, 2. Sebastian Vettel & 3. Max Verstappen

The race starts on Sunday 31st of March 2019 at 16:10 GMT.

Don't forget to take part in our F1 Poule to win 2 tickets for the 2020 Belgian or British F1 GP

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