#BahrainGP: The post-practice debrief – FP2 report and driver reactions. #F1

We take a look at the latest from the paddock at the Bahrain GP including the FP2 report, selected driver reactions and more. Let’s dive into it.

 

 

Hamilton tops Bahrain GP FP2 as Albon suffers heavy crash

 

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton topped a twice red-flagged inflicted FP2 session at the Bahrain GP as Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon suffered a huge shunt and a dog invaded the track.

 

Hamilton, who topped the earlier Free Practice 1 session, completed a late stint on the C4 red side-walled soft tyres to move ahead of long-time P1 holder in FP2, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen.

 

The Dutchman’s best effort was set on the yellow-marked medium compounds in the first third of FP2 as the drivers struggled to keep their soft tyres alive for the length of the 5.412km Bahrain International Circuit on their qualifying simulation runs.

 

The race weekend’s only practice session that ran under the desert’s bright lights took place with temperature a little cooler than Friday afternoon’s Free Practice 1 outing, as the days-long cloud cover halted the track surface from heating up.

 

Most of the field ran the new 2021 C3 developmental compounds by sole-tyre supplier Pirelli at the start of FP2, with only Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi and McLaren’s Lando Norris starting on the harder rubber as McLaren’s Carlos Sainz posted a 1:30.989 to lead the early times.

 

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen then moved to the top following a halt in action at the 20 minute-mark as most drivers – including the Mercedes duo, who remained on track until the first 30 minutes of the session was completed – came in to put on the regular tyres.

 

But the 2007 World Champion’s 1:30.928 on the mediums was beaten by Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen with a 1:29.318, which stood as the session’s best until less than 15 minutes on the clock.

 

Verstappen then set the best first sector with his initial soft-tyre effort approaching the mid-way point of proceedings, but the Dutchman faded throughout the rest of his lap compared to his medium run and was unable to improve.

 

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas then reciprocated Verstappen a few moments later, as the Finn was 0.1 seconds up on the Red Bull driver’s medium compound benchmark only to lose a chunk of time in the final sector and wound up behind.

 

The session was then stopped when Albon wiped off the right-hand side of his Honda-powered RB16 when he spun off into the barriers upon the exit of the final corner.

 

Albon dipped off into the kerbs exiting the last turn and caught a snap of over-steer on the dusty run-off area. the Red Bull lost it and sent the Thai-Briton driver into the gravel trap and crashed heavily into the barriers.

 

The RB16 racer bounced back towards the circuit, where Albon climbed out of his wrecked Red Bull – in similar circumstances to his final-corner shunt in practice at last season’s 2019 Chinese Grand Prix – with the session also red-flagged for ten minutes as the car was removed.

 

When FP2 resumed, the field headed out quickly but only to be called to return to pit-lane as a dog crawled under one of the track’s fences and ran down a bank and onto the circuit.

 

It soon headed towards another boundary wall, but it’s interruption caused the session to stop for another five minutes.

 

But the session went back to green and ran to the end, with both Mercedes drivers immediately having a go and jumping Verstappen’s Bahrain GP FP2 benchmark.

 

Bottas could not improve, whilst Hamilton, who had not completed a flyer before the red flags as his stint on the development rubber left the Briton a few seconds off the pace, did move up the time-sheets, but only to sixth place and 0.271 seconds off of the Dutchman.

 

As most of the pack switched to long race-run data gathering, Mercedes let Hamilton have another run, which he used to finally topple Verstappen’s Bahrain GP FP2 best effort.

 

The seven-time World Champion hammered his way to the fastest time in the session in the first two sectors, and whilst he lost a but of time in the final sector, he was still able to take P1 with a 1:28.971.

 

This put the Mercedes driver 0.347 seconds quicker than Verstappen, with Bottas taking third and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez fourth.

 

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo was fifth and ahead of Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who took sixth and McLaren’s Norris who ended the day seventh, who did his run on the development compounds after the second restart, as did Alfa Romeo’s Giovinazzi.

 

The other Racing Point of Lance Stroll wound up eighth, while AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat and the aforementioned Albon rounded out the top ten – their best efforts also posted on the C3 mediums, although the latter was on the softer compound when he crashed.

 

Renault’s Esteban Ocon was 11th and in-front of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who was 12th and McLaren’s Sainz who was 13th.

 

The other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc took 14th and was 1.436 seconds adrift of Hamilton’s Bahrain GP FP2 benchmark with the Monegasque-youngster having almost spun in the early proceedings as he caught a snap of over-steer as he exited turn three while accelerating.

 

Alfa Romeo duo Giovinazzi and Raikkonen were 15th and 17th respectively with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen sandwiched in-between.

 

The two Williams Racing FW43’s of Nicholas Latifi and George Russell were 18th and at the rear with the other Haas VF-20 of Romain Grosjean splitting the pairing in 18th.

 

You can read the full Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2020 Free Practice 2 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1059/bahrain/practice-2.html

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Bahrain GP FP2 – Selected Driver Quotes

 

 

Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“It felt great to get back out on the track, I just love driving this car. Today felt a bit more like a test day though as we didn’t get to do a lot of qualifying style laps, instead it was a lot of discovery on next year’s tyres. This track works the tyres completely differently compared to the last race in Turkey, it’s a night and day difference. Instead of doing a fast outlap to get temperatures into the tyres, you’re trying to go slow on the outlap to not put too much temperatures into them and keep them from overheating. I wasn’t particularly happy with the balance of the car, but everyone is probably in a similar position as the track was quite slippery and dusty. We definitely got some work overnight to try and improve ahead of tomorrow.”

 

Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+:

“Our day was overall ok, looking at our performance and the general feeling in the car. It was more challenging in the first session and I expect it’ll be the same tomorrow because the track temperatures are higher at that time and there’s more wind as well. Both sessions were slightly messy with traffic and a few mistakes here and there, so there’s certainly more to come. I’m also not fully happy with the balance yet, we’ve got some work to do there. It’s tricky to say where we are competitively as we ran a different programme to everyone else, focusing on the new Pirelli tyres. I think Red Bull are certainly up there, they looked pretty good in FP2. The main challenge in Bahrain is always overheating of the tyres, something we haven’t had for a few races, so we need to adapt our different driving style accordingly. So lots of things to learn for tomorrow from today.”

 

 

Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari, SF1000:

“Today in the first session the sun was still up while in the second one it was night time, however, maybe because of the time of year, there was definitely less difference between the sessions compared to the previous years. I think that the Sakhir track does not suit us as well as it has done in the past, but we still have a little bit to improve and work on, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow. Looking ahead to Sunday, we know the track is tough on tyres and so it is difficult to make them last, but it will be the same for everybody. It is yet not clear which tyres will work best, and therefore how many stops we will need. But first we must focus on quali and then we will see for the race. While it’s true the point are only given out at the end of the race, the higher up the grid you start, the better your chances, as you have more options in terms of strategy and tyre management.”

 

Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, SF1000:

“It’s been a difficult first day. I was expecting to do a bit better because traditionally this is has been very strong track for the team in the past few years, but today, we seemed to struggle quite a bit more. But we are usually pretty good at fixing the issues overnight, so hopefully we’ll come back stronger tomorrow. I think it’s pretty clear what we need to do to improve. It’s just the balance really, as through the corners it’s very tricky and it’s quite difficult to manage the car and I made a few mistakes. The times are all extremely close, so any gains we make can result in a big difference.”

 

 

Daniel Ricciardo, #3, Renault DP World F1 Team, R.S.20:

“It’s really nice to be driving in warm conditions, so I’m very happy. Our afternoon session wasn’t anything spectacular but, in the evening, we made some adjustments and we’re in a much better place, so I’d say we’re there or thereabouts. It will be tight tomorrow in qualifying. The tyres are going to get pretty chewed up around here, so a two-stop is likely and that would be the first one in the dry we’ve seen in a while. We did some race simulations in Free Practice 2 and we’re looking fairly solid.”

 

Pierre Gasly, #10, Scuderia AlphaTauri, AT01:

“It’s nice to be back in a bit more normal conditions compared to Istanbul two weeks ago. We had a positive Friday, probably one of our strongest this season and the car felt good straight away since FP1. I think pace-wise we look pretty competitive, but there are still some things we can improve on in terms of car balance to extract even more from the package we have. It looks promising, so we’ll try to find these extra tenths for Qualifying tomorrow.”

 

Lando Norris, #4, McLaren Racing-Renault, MCL35:

“Tricky day, but at the same time one where I think we gathered a lot of data and got a good understanding of the car. We got through all the planning and the running that we wanted to. It wasn’t the easiest or the most straightforward day, but we’ve got good info, so it’s down to tonight and FP3 to put it all together and make some improvements going into qualifying.”

 

Romain Grosjean, #8, Haas F1 Team, VF-20:

“I was a bit surprised this morning when I woke up and saw the rain. The positive is the track wasn’t too hot in FP1 and therefore we could work a bit closer to what the race will be like. This track is cool though. It’s tough on tires, there’s quite a bit of degradation – you really have to manage them. It also produces some good racing. This track is one of the easiest of the year to overtake at, so on that aspect it’s always cool racing. We’ve really been working on getting the car set up for the race.”

 

Sergio Perez, #11, BWT Racing Point F1 Team, RP20:

“I’m happy with the pace today: it’s an encouraging start, but it’s very clear that the margins are extremely tight – one or two tenths could make a big difference on Saturday. We’ll see how that plays out tomorrow, but I think the most important factor this weekend will be the tyre management. That could make the difference in the really tight battle we’re in because it’s close between ourselves and our rivals. The red flag affected everyone’s long runs in FP2, but we were still able to learn a lot about the tyres. We will go away tonight and look into how we can improve further for tomorrow in qualifying and how the tyre wear can influence strategy in the race.”

 

Antonio Giovinazzi, #99, Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN, C39:

“It’s been a straightforward Friday, like you always want, and we were able to do everything we had planned. Of course there is always a margin for improvement, but that’s what we are going to do tonight when we look at the data and try to make the right set-up changes for tomorrow. The objective is to make it to Q2: it’s going to be a close fight and we’ll need to put the perfect lap together to be ahead of our closest rivals.”

 

George Russell, #63, Williams Racing, FW43:

“It was nice to get back out on track today under the lights as it is always pretty spectacular, so I enjoyed it. It hurt us slightly missing FP1, as it puts you on the back foot and then with those red flags from Alex’s crash and the appearance from the dog, it didn’t make it the easiest session. It affected my low fuel run on the soft tyre as I was on the out-lap both times the session got red flagged. However, we have been in this position before and we know what to do. It will be a long evening into the early hours of tomorrow, and then wake up tomorrow and go and have some fun. Let’s see what we can do.”

 

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Catch up on FP1 at the link:

 

#BahrainGP FP1 report: @LewisHamilton heads @MercedesAMGF1 one-two. #F1

 

Read this weekend’s race preview at the link:

 

#Formula1 @GulfAir #BahrainGrandPrix 2020 Preview. #F1 #BahrainGP @BAH_Int_Circuit