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The Season opener in Australia, saw Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel take the top honors. Now, F1 heads to Bahrain for the second round of the World Championship.
Windblown sands, low grip, scorching heat, and a twilight race is on the cards at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Vettel has won it a record 3 times, which he shares with Fernando Alonso, while Lewis Hamilton has been on the top step of the podium twice in Bahrain.
The high temperatures in Bahrain have suited the newer generation Ferrari’s in comparison to the other teams.
Ferrari has won it five times, the highest number of wins in Sakhir till date, while Mercedes have won it thrice, Red Bull and Renault have two wins each.
The choice of tires for the Grand Prix is same as last year which is, the white sidewall Mediums, the yellow Softs and the red Supersofts. This year, every compound is one step softer than the previous years.
#5 McLaren and Alonso's sky-high confidence
McLaren was struggling with their former engine supplier Honda, they had multiple engine failures and struggled for pace in the 2017 season.
Double World Champion Fernando Alonso, finished 5th in Australia, while his teammate Vandoorne finished 9th putting both the car in points.
A 5th has been their best ever finish in 2017, and achieving it in the first ever race with Renault in 2018 was a rather surprising result from Mclaren.
Alonso has been hinting that there is a lot more development left in their cars and the team is bringing in a lot of upgrades for Bahrain GP. Alonso also stated that they have moved their focus from being a mid-field team to chasing the Red Bullshereafter.
Alonso is one of the best drivers on the current F1 grid, and if things go as expected for McLaren, the glory days for Alonso and McLaren is not too far away.
#4 Redbull and Ricciardo’s super fast lap
Despite not being on the podium in the inaugural race, Daniel Ricciardo clocked the fastest lap of the race. He was almost half a second faster than any other car on the track.
His teammate Max Verstappen, had complained of oversteer since the start of the race, hit a curb hard, and spun out, while he was fighting for 4th place with the Haas driven by Magnussen.
Verstappen had to settle for 6th place with handling issues.
The fastest lap from Ricciardo in Australia proves that Red Bull is not very far away from joining the leading pack.
In the past few years, the team has had the similar race pace to Mercedes and Ferrari, but, have lost out on qualifying.
Considering the overtaking difficulties with these hybrid era F1 cars, a strong qualifying from the Red Bulls can put them back on the top spot.
#3 Haas has reshuffled its pit crew after losing the race in the pits
Pitstop blunders for both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean at the Australian GP denied the team possibly their best ever result in their F1 campaign. Initially, they assumed that the wheel gun failure was the reason for it.
The post-race analysis concluded that the lack of practice from the pit crew, which had a lot of new crew members was the reason.
For this weekend, Haas has altered its procedures to try to ensure their mistakes are not repeated.
Haas Team Principal Steiner said:
"We swapped a few positions [between pit crew], and the main reason is not that they did the mistake, but getting their confidence back.
"If you keep on doing the same and the guys are not confident, the risk that you have a mistake again is high, so we swapped positions.
"You pair different people and give them different jobs because you need so many people anyway, and that is what we did for this race, and that is what we are doing since yesterday practicing."
Haas has turned a lot of heads with their astonishing pace in testing and the first race. Until things went awry in Australia, both Magnussen and Grosjean were keeping the charging Red Bulls behind them.
Haas will try to lead the pack of midfield cars, there is a reserve chance that they can be ahead of the Red Bull if they out qualify them on Saturday.
#2 Mercedes fixes the bug and looks to bounce back
Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had the fastest car in the opening round of F1 2018. The team was not able to convert that into a win due to a bug in their software which calculates the delta times during safety car period claimed the team. The calculation of the delta time cost a win for the German manufacturer.
Mercedes meanwhile have fixed their software issues for Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hamilton expects Ferrari to be “rapid”, suggesting the race will be even closer in pure pace terms.
Hamilton and Mercedes will try to get their car on pole with their party mode coming to play during the qualifying.
Bottas the pole sitter of 2017 Bahrain GP, who had a bad crash in the Q3 of Australian GP two weeks ago, will try to be cautious because the sand can on asphalt can be tricky at times.
He cannot afford to make another mistake during the course of qualifying. Mercedes felt the pressure of just having one car in top5 during the first race.
#1 Strong and confident Ferrari
With such a strong history at Bahrain, Vettel and Ferrari are clearly the favorites. Ferrari certainly did not have the fastest car at Albert Park, but they still managed to grab the win from their rivals Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.
This week Vettel will make history as he is all set for his 200th F1 start and he will be looking to make it special with a win.
The Ferrari’s haven’t been a strong car in Qualifying in the last few years. It's very important for Vettel to be on the front row and try to get his nose ahead of the Mercedes at turn1.
In the past, we have seen the Mercedes pull away from rest of the pack in the first few laps of the race. So the strategy at Ferrari will be to try and prevent that from happening.
Kimi Raikkonen looks much stronger in Ferrari SF71h compared to the older SF70h which he struggled with handling issues back in 2017.
The Iceman out-qualified Vettel at Melbourne and was the leading Ferrari in Melbourne till the virtual safety car came into play, which turned out to be a full safety car period, which handed over the lead to his Ferrari teammate.
A Ferrari 1 and 2 finish will be icing on the cake, which is quite possible with both drivers showing great form this season.
