Bahrain Race Preview

With qualifying done and only the race left to come all of the turmoil and unrest will be overshadowed for at least a few more hours. Fears of additional violence around the track have yet to play out since the incident with Force India and it is extremely unlikely that the race will be disrupted in any way with the tight security around the circuit.

Coming into qualifying today Nico Rosberg appeared to have the pace to duplicate his pole performance in China by leading the time sheets in P2 and P3. Unfortunately for him and teammate Michael Schumacher they couldn't replicate that speed during qualifying. Schumacher even failed to get out of Q1, though that has been attributed more to a failed DRS than lack of speed for the Mercedes squad. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull made a strong charge for pole. They appeared to have found their old form again in Bahrain while McLaren are not far off of the lead pace.

With the high heat in Bahrain it will be interesting to see just how well the tires hold up. Many of the lower qualifiers will have ample options available to them in strategy. With teams battling the heat and only around a second difference between the soft and medium tire the two and three stop strategies we witnessed in China will be in play again. It will be especially interesting to see what strategy Schumacher and Raikkonen attempt with both of their team mates starting on soft tires from Q3. I'd expect to see both of them attempt two-stop strategies starting on the medium tire and saving the soft tires for the final stint when they will be able to squeeze the most life from them.

Up at the front of the field it will be a fantastic start. With Vettel, Hamilton, Webber and Button all within three-tenths during qualifying and all being fantastic off the line in recent weeks. The winner into turn one may very well be the victor in this race, especially with the difficult passing zones and a DRS zone which is slightly shorter than the one at Shanghai. With the very tight turn one, high tire degradation (and thus more debris off line), and less room to recover from bad braking it will be difficult to make good use of the DRS zone to pass. The race would have better served with two linked DRS zones similar to Montreal last year, allowing drivers to close down the gap in the first (shorter) zone and make the pass down the longer second zone.

While Daniel Riccardo had a fantastic qualifying for Toro Rosso, they should temper their enthusiasm. They have used all three of their option tires, and they will almost certainly not be able to match the race pace of the top teams. Smart tire and pit strategy will be key for them to turn in a points performance. Other drivers to watch out for would be Sergio Perez and Paul di Resta. Both have turned in top ten performances and both cars are at the top of the speed trap this week a key statistic at a track like Bahrain.