Luke’s Weekend Take – Bahrain GP 2024

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2024 F1 Season Ignites at Bahrain: Sauber and VCARB's New Era, Ricciardo Leads FP1

Bahrain GP 2024

It’s been 96 boring days, but we are finally back to glorious racing at Bahrain for the start of the 2024 season where I’m expecting this season to be a bit more competitive and closer at the front of the grid.

We start off looking at some new team names with the team formerly known as Alfa Romeo had a massive makeover and dropped the white and red for black and green with the new team’s name “Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber” which will be sometimes fully used as is and with times being partially used due to Gambling regulations. For ease, the commentators have started referring to them as just Sauber and I think I might join suit on that one.

The other team who decided to rebrand a bit was AlphaTauri who are now known as Visa Cash App Red Bull or in short VCARB, they also changed their appearance and given us a throwback to the Toro Rosso days with their new colour scheme which I am a big fan of. The battle between the 2 VCARB drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo will be interesting this year as it could well decide who will replace Sergio Perez in the Red Bull seat should Checo not perform to Red Bulls expectations so that is one thing I will be keeping an eye on this season.

We now start taking a look at the action where in FP1 we see Sauber still running some aero rakes as they come onto the track as the testing, they done last week didn’t give them enough data or they were testing some changes they had done from the learning of testing. We see Lance Stroll having a big lock up mid-way through the sessions and to no ones shock we hear Max Verstappen the reigning world champion complain about his downshifts which was an occurrence at every practice last season. Other than that, the session seemed to have run as expected and we see Daniel Ricciardo top the leaderboard in FP1 followed by Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. It’s worth mentioning that in FP1 VCARB and McLaren were the only 2 teams who ran the soft compound tyre.

Looking at FP2 this was more business as usual for the teams as they continued with their programs ahead of the race on Saturday (this is due to the 1st day of Ramadan being on Sunday so the first 2 races will be held on a Saturday rather than the usual Sunday we are all used to). Given the time of FP2 being like qualifying we see most teams run the soft tyre compound so they get a feel for the track at the time qualifying will be held to get their relative times and qualifying simulations along with some long running for the race on Saturday. At the halfway mark we see both Silver Arrows occupying the top 2 spots with Lewis Hamilton leading his teammate George Russell while Carlos Sainz was close behind in the Ferrari. Is this a Red Bull ploy and are they not showing their full had yet? The session ends in this order, but reports say that Red Bull haven’t yet turned up their engine.

Bahrain GP FP3 Sets Stage: Sainz Leads, Red Bull Battles Gear Issues Ahead of Qualifying

Heading now onto Friday for FP3 it was more Qualifying simulations by the teams to ensure they fine tune the cars for the last time ahead of qualifying apart from Red Bull who was the only team who went out on hards while they are still tackling some gear issues as we hear Perez complain that he is getting some rough upshifts. It was also reported in FP3 that the pitlane speed that drivers drive will be monitored during qualifying to ensure that there was no impeding in the pitlane happening as well. And at the end of FP3 we see Sainz topping the leaderboard followed by Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen in 3rd, who will take pole position for the 1st race of the 2024 season?

Later on Friday the awaited 1st qualifying session started and after the initial 1st runs in Q1 I got more hope that Red Bull might not run away with it this season as easily as they did in 2023 as everyone at the top was fairly close with Max and Checo not even in the podium positions. In the end we end up losing Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Logan Sargeant, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly in Q1. Alpine seems to be the team struggling so far this year and they will be working hard to get out of that bottom spot.

In Q1 George Russell was noted for failing to follow the race directors instructions around the max delta time on his outlap and was said that this will be investigated after the session, after investigation however nothing came out of this as the stewards announced no further investigation on this. Q2 overall went quite smooth and in the end, we end up losing Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll, Alex Albon, Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen.

In Q3, Red Bull seem to have woken up a bit and ensured that they have a good chance come Saturday for the race as after the 1st runs, we see Max Verstappen on provisional pole with Charles Leclerc very close behind him. And after the final runs it was the inevitable Max Verstappen on pole followed by Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg forming the top 10. What is interesting however is the time Charles Leclerc set in Q2 was quicker than the time Max Verstappen set to get pole however Ferrari got bitten as they had to use 2 sets of softs in Q1 which put their progress back for Q3, however this could all mean that come race day it will be closer in the front if the other teams have made significant improvements on their race pace.

Who do you will come out victorious on the race on Saturday? Logic is telling me Max will win but the F1 fan in me is saying there is going to be a battle for 1st place, the one main thing that all F1 fans have been longing for. Honestly will be obviously happier if Leclerc takes that chequered flag but I wouldn’t mind who win as long as there is a battle going on.

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