2018 FORMULA 1 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX - LIVE THREAD

4/6/2018 | Chode

[Chode]

Bahrain International Circuit

FIRST GRAND PRIX 2004

NUMBER OF LAPS 57

CIRCUIT LENGTH 5.412KM

RACE DISTANCE 308.238KM

LAP RECORD 1:31.447 by Pedro de la Rosa (2005)

[Chode]

thx

[wita]

After reading the info on your home page I did a quick search to find the info you had, but didn’t find it right away, but did find a reference to his high school and three folks who also knew him and and were responding to the information of him being missing in action. Turns out we went to the same High School about four years apart. Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery AL. His father and mine were both AF Officers serving at Maxwell, AFB AL. I ended up with your info by copy and paste. Thanks for preserving his memory.

[Chode]

wlcome. Gone, but NOT Forgotten

[ironman]

Fernando now sitting P4 in championship points.

[daltec]

And not too far behind #3 (Bottas, Mercedes). I'm not sure how exactly, but McLaren themselves are even #3 in constructors. But it looks like a long way to catch up to Mercedes or Ferrari.

We will see what happens next week in Shanghai!

[Henchster]

I think Alonso is looking at P4, but not the championship points standings. He’s looking at the Toro Rosso in P4 of the race, a place he hasn’t seen since he was driving for Ferrari.

Seb did a great job today managing the tires. I wonder how high Hammy would have placed if the Red Bulls hadn’t dropped out, and Ferrari hadn’t dropped the ball on Kimi’s stop?

[Elle Bee]

MGPGA

Trump has made the GP great again

Now if only I could find David Hobbs and Co for coverage

ESPN is just dreadful race coverage

any advice?

.

[ironman]

At least ESPN ran the race without commercial breaks. I’ll give them credit for that.

[Lockbox]

It appears the McLaren may have been the source of some of the issues over the last 3 years. The Zero size package lead to compromises of engine accessories and cooling.

[Chode]

• Race
• Race result
• Fastest laps
• Pit stop summary
• Starting grid
• Qualifying
• Practice 3
• Practice 2
• Practice 1

	Pos	No	Driver	Car	Laps	Time/Retired	Pts
	1	5	Sebastian Vettel VET	Ferrari	57	1:32:01.940	25
	2	77	Valtteri Bottas BOT	Mercedes	57	+0.699s	18
	3	44	Lewis Hamilton HAM	Mercedes	57	+6.512s	15
	4	10	Pierre Gasly GAS	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda	57	+62.234s	12
	5	20	Kevin Magnussen MAG	Haas Ferrari	57	+75.046s	10
	6	27	Nico Hulkenberg HUL	Renault	57	+99.024s	8
	7	14	Fernando Alonso ALO	McLaren Renault	56	+1 lap	6
	8	2	Stoffel Vandoorne VAN	McLaren Renault	56	+1 lap	4
	9	9	Marcus Ericsson ERI	Sauber Ferrari	56	+1 lap	2
	10	31	Esteban Ocon OCO	Force India Mercedes	56	+1 lap	1
	11	55	Carlos Sainz SAI	Renault	56	+1 lap	0
	12	16	Charles Leclerc LEC	Sauber Ferrari	56	+1 lap	0
	13	8	Romain Grosjean GRO	Haas Ferrari	56	+1 lap	0
	14	18	Lance Stroll STR	Williams Mercedes	56	+1 lap	0
	15	35	Sergey Sirotkin SIR	Williams Mercedes	56	+1 lap	0
	16	11	Sergio Perez PER	Force India Mercedes	56	+1 lap	0
	17	28	Brendon Hartley HAR	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda	56	+1 lap	0
	NC	7	Kimi Räikkönen RAI	Ferrari	35	DNF	0
	NC	33	Max Verstappen VER	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	3	DNF	0
	NC	3	Daniel Ricciardo RIC	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1	DNF	0

Note – Perez originally finished 12th but had 30s added to race time for passing on the formation lap. Hartley originally finished 13th but had 30s added to race time for failing to retake his original starting position before reaching the safety-car line on the formation lap.

[Chode]

damn it’s good to see you again!

i prefer Sky live feed when i can get it

F1 on NBCSN - the final sign-off from Leigh Diffey, David Hobbs, Steve Matchett, and Will Buxton

https://youtu.be/fdL4ewe1cHo?t=176

[Henchster]

What’s wrong with the ESPN coverage?

I think it is way better than the NBC coverage. The NBC coverage was riddled with puff pieces instead of racing. Diffey, Hobbs and Matchett were terribly uninformed and inaccurate compared to Croft, Brundle and Di Resta on the ESPN/Sky coverage. Brundle in particular is excellent at figuring out what is going on and communicating it to us. The NBC crew simply guessed - mostly wrong. And Will Buxton was excruciatingly annoying.

[Henchster]

Spot on. They bragged about how good their chassis was, but the chassis was good because they had heavily compromised the engine package for aero/chassis gains. Poor decision.

This year as a customer, they are stuck with Renault’s engine package architecture, and all of a sudden the chassis isn’t so good, and the aero package has way too much drag for the downforce it is producing. Oh, and they’re still at the bottom of the speed traps, so maybe the Honda engine wasn’t as bad as it looked.

[Elle Bee]

Thank you that was a sweet good bye. Wish they were back

.

[Lockbox]

I knew there were problems when the crew cut holes in the engine cover during testing at Barcelona. The weather was just above freezing. If your car runs hot in freezing temperatures, what happens when you get to hot temperatures?

[Henchster]

A huge team like McLaren can’t even keep the bodywork from melting when it is snowing?

Meanwhile, tiny Toro Rosso integrated their new engine with a different architecture with virtually no problems.

[Lockbox]

Articles covering the Honda engine basically say McLaren told Honda how to package their engine while Toro Rosso and Honda worked together to develope the car. Remember the Brawn car was co-designed by Honda.

Honda’s mystery F1 car

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/f1/hondas-secret-f1-car-revealed/#

[Henchster]

I hadn’t seen that in several years, thanks for the flashback. You just know the Honda engineers feel like freed slaves now that they don’t have to deal with McLaren’s demands. I’m sure they will pull out all the stops this year to convince McLaren they were wrong, and prove to Red Bull they are ready to win championships.

[Lockbox]

Red bull may drop Renault engines for Honda if this keeps up. I think the deadline is in May to notify Renault.

[Henchster]

Here's a good read on the Honda/Renault decision by McLaren, and the upcoming one for Red Bull:

Bahrain Grand Prix: Did Toro Rosso show Honda engine programme is on right track?