I'm intentionally avoiding any comment on the politics, etc, of F1 in Bahrain, but this is different IMO as it's down to actual safety issues encountered by one of the teams. If you haven't been following along, the protest mentioned here experienced by Force India crew members included a molotov exploding near their car. A few members left the country after this and the team elected to skip a practice session yesterday so they could travel from the track in daylight. Muppet Head Bernie hurried down to "express his concern" while they were packing up and speculation is he threatened some sort of penalty. No one involved will admit anything but here's the first sign (also discussed by Speed announcers during the quali broadcast).
Force India not shown on TV in qualifying (GPUpdate.net)
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Yep, 4 teams on pole in 4 races, but the big player this year is tire management post-quali and from the sound of it the temps and abrasive track surface will make tires an even bigger factor this round. Frustrating for the engineers, potentially entertaining for the rest of us.
Stepping away from tires, I'm curious to see whether Vettel will be able to pull out that plus 1-sec gap in the first few laps like last year before DRS is enabled.
Fingers crossed for another good race.
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The difference between last week and last year is that instead of watching the "battle for 14th, it was a battle of extremely equally matched cars for Second. I think Nico only got so far ahead because Shumi gave him a lead and tied everyone up, whether that was intentional, or not is debatable. It probably wasn't intentional, but it nevertheless affected the entire race. It wasn't a case where the car and driver were so far ahead of the curve in terms of performance that no one else had a chance.
Last year Red Bull had figured out how to exploit the blown diffuser a bit better than everyone else, and this year, without that edge, their cars have moved back into the pack. It's a very different situation this year. The cars are much closer in performance (the "double DRS" notwithstanding).
At least, that's how I see it
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Don't forget Varsha's "one swell foop"
BTW, the stewards looked at all the video and aquitted Rosbug of all guilt and will not penalize him at the next race. -
Whilst the competitiveness of the season so far has been a breath of much needed fresh air in F1, for this fan the real story has been the rise of Lotus and the fall of Ferrari. For without Alonso's spectacular display of driving at Malaysia, the scuderia would be sliding very near mid pack in competitiveness.
Then who, before the season had begun, would have predicted how well Lotus has done, much less both Kimi and Grosjean occupying the podium this past weekend in Bahrain? Is it Kimi or Lotus? Either way Kimi's return has been more than expected and Lotus must be patting themselves on the back about right now for hiring him!!
Will all this add up to a win for Lotus before the season's end, or does it just mean that they'll be in the hunt for second, after a resurgent Vettle and Red Bull?
Guess we'll have to watch and see!
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Ha! Always looking for an edge, isn't he?
I think Kimi will win at least one this year, he definitely has the fire in his belly this year!
I'm thinking this championship could come down to the last race of the year.... -
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