Bahrain Grand Prix Tag

By FIA Sebastian Vettel took a thrilling 49th career victory on his 200th race start, nursing fading tyres to the chequered flag to hold off a determined charge by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas. Lewis Hamilton took third place after starting ninth as Red Bull Racing saw both cars exit the race early on. At the start, Vettel held his advantage from pole, but behind him Bottas made a better start than Räikkönen and stole second through Turn 1. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was briefly passed by Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly but the Australian quickly retookRead More

By FIA Sebastian Vettel will make his 200th grand prix start from the front of the grid after the Ferrari driver claimed his 51st career pole at the Bahrain International Circuit ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes Valtteri Bottas. Defending champion Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth place but the Mercedes driver will drop to P9 on the grid due to an unscheduled gearbox change. Räikkönen set the early pace in Q1, his first flying laps, on soft compound Pirelli tyres, yielding a time of 1:29.951. Ferrari team-mate Vettel slotted into P2Read More

By FIA After taking top spot in Friday’s second practice session, Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen doubled up with the fastest time in final practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Finn, who escaped sanction for an unsafe release on FP2, set a supersoft-shod lap of 1:29.868 with around 20 minutes remaining in the session. The time was good and the Finn might have expected it to be challenged but in the end only Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo got anywhere close, with the Dutchman finishing 0.525s behind theRead More

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor The season opening Australian Grand Prix gave us more questions than answers to start the 2018 season. This weekend in Bahrain F1 fans will hope for a clearer running order and less mysterious proceedings. Has Mercedes advantage over the rest of the field grown? Can Ferrari’s straight line speed and penchant for hot conditions give them the edge? What is the true pace of Red Bull? Is the pace of Haas for real? All these questions will be answered as the hot Sakhir sun slips belowRead More

By FIA Kimi Räikkönen went quickest in second practice ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix but the Ferrari driver may be facing a grid penalty due to a possible unsafe release from the pit lane late in the session. The Finn was quickly into the action as the session got underway and set an early benchmark of 1:30.689 on soft compound Pirellis that was later passed by team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas. Räikkönen then wasted no time in getting his qualifying simulation out of the way, beingRead More

By FIA Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo edged a tight battle for early supremacy in Bahrain, beating rivals Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen by over three tenths of a second in the opening practice session at the Bahrain International Crciut. While the opening session at the Gulf circuit is notoriously unreliable due to its daylight timing ahead of a night race, Ricciardo will take confidence from his late charge up the leaderboard. After an early run on medium tyres, the Australian spent the bulk of the session inRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The Formula 1 season is officially underway following an exciting Australian Grand Prix two weekends ago, but now the focus turns toward the second and third rounds of the championship. As such, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo previews the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix and the Heineken Chinese Grand Prix. Our friends from Mobil 1 The Grid have brought together the Aussie’s thoughts on the first back-to-back events of 2018. Video Credit: Mobil 1 The GridRead More

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took his second victory of the season in Bahrain as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton recovered from a poor start and a penalty to finish in second place ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton exerted intense pressure in the final stages, chopping deep into a 13-second deficit to Vettel but the German kept a cool head to thread through traffic and take the flag with 6.6 seconds in hand. Had Hamilton not earlier been penalised for holding up Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo during a pit stop, the battle mightRead More

Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, edging team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just two hundredths of a second to claim the first front-of-grid start of his career. Sebastian Vettel was third for Ferrari ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo and the second Ferrari of Kimi Räikkönen. Pascal Wehrlein got things underway in Q1 with a time of 1:33.502, but that was soon eclipsed by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and then by Bottas, who elected to run with soft tyres as he set a P1 time of 1:31.041.Read More

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel topped the timesheets as practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix got underway at the Sakhir Circuit, with the German finishing four tenths of a second clear of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo. It wasn’t a wholly successful session for Ferrari, however, with Kimi Räikkönen stopping on track early in the session with smoke rising from the back of his car. It left the Italian squad bookending the timing, with Räikkönen 20th and last on the sheet. Vettel’s P1 time, set on soft tyres, came with around halfRead More