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Saudi Arabian GP (Tyre strategy)

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  One day after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and it's time to see and comment on each team's tyre strategy for each driver. 12 of the 20 drivers followed the same tyre strategy, but let's start from the beginning. Red Bull followed exactly the same strategy for both drivers. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez started the race on medium tyres switching to hards during the safety car on lap 7. Williams and RB used the same strategy, switching onto hards during the safety car. Unfortunately for RB, Daniel Ricciardo suffered a pitstop of nearly a minute with a jack failure and nearly having the wrong tyres put on the car.  For Ferrari, Leclerc started the race on the medium tyres as opposed to Bearman who started on the softs. They also took the opportunity to pit under the safety car on lap 7 with both choosing the hard compound tyres. For Bearman, the Saudi Arabian GP was his debut in Formula 1, as he replaced Carlos Sainz, and it is very likely that with this strategy Ferrari ...
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FP1 Saudi Arabia 07/03/24

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  First practice for the Grand Prix in Jeddah started today at 4:30pm local time. This is the first street circuit on the calendar and has the highest corner count of the season with 27 turns and 3 DRS zones. All 20 drivers were present for FP1 today despite Carlos Sainz missing out on media day yesterday due to a stomach bug. Lance Stroll survived a brush with the wall but did have trouble getting his front left wheel off when back in the pits. Charles Leclerc was on his team radio reporting that the track was "like Mario Kart, plastic bags everywhere." Top 3 at the end of the session were Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez.  How will the results look at the end of FP2?
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Bahrain Grand Prix 2024

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 The 2024 season kicked off with the 20th Bahrain Grand Prix. Lights out was 8:30pm local time and after 57 laps and 192 miles of racing Max Verstappen took his 55th F1 victory, with Sergio Perez in second and Carlos Sainz in third.   Max started on pole and led every lap of the race, his fastest lap (1:32.608s) was 1.4s faster than any other lap of the race. On lap 38 Verstappen was +41s ahead of Perez in P2. Carlos Sainz was voted Driver of the Day and for the first time in Bahrain GP history all 20 drivers finished the race with no retirees or red flags. All drivers opted to start on the soft compound tyres with most doing 2 pitstops and ending up on the hard compound to finish. It was a race with minimal drama with Hulkenberg and Stroll having contact on lap 1 resulting in front wing damage for Hulkenberg and a yellow flag on lap 10 when Logan Sargeant ran into the gravel. Both George Russell and Alex Albon had trouble with overheating which has led to speculation of ...
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Qualifying Bahrain 01/03/24

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First quali of the season held on a Friday this week due to the holy season of Ramadan. The tires for this weekend are the C1, C2 and C3. The best track times seem to be on softs for this track. There is a track temperature of 22 degrees this evening in Bahrain. Its warm but quite windy. Q1 Top 3 drivers in Q1 were Sainz up front with a lap time of 1:29.9, followed by Stroll and Verstappen.   The 5 drivers eliminated from Q1 were P20 - P.Gasly 1:30.948 P19 - E.Ocon 1:30.793  P18 - L Sargeant 1:30.770 P17 - G.Zhou 1:30.757 P16 - V.Bottas 1:30.756 Very disappointing for Alpine with a lockout on the back row but not overly surprising. The car looked poor in testing last weekend and the team have said they are facing challenges. Ocons radio at the end of Q1 Q2 During Q2 a few drivers were reporting the track had very little grip and there were a few problems with queuing in the pit lane. Max Verstappen set the lap time early on in the session with Charles Leclerc snatching it...
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FP3 Bahrain 01/03/24

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 Quite uneventful final practice before this afternoons qualifying. Top of the results table was Carlos Sainz with a lap time of 1:30.8 on soft compound tyres. Most drivers opted for softs for this session with only Verstappen and Perez going for the hard compound tyres.
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FP2 Bahrain 29/02/24

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 With temperatures more like what they will be for the race on Saturday, FP2 finished with a 1-2 from Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton +0.206s ahead of his team mate with a 1:30.374 lap time. Max Verstappen finished in P6 with a lap time of 1:30.851 and complaining of "too much air" coming into his helmet. Is Red Bull just luring everyone into a false sense of security before tomorrows qualifying?? Will the RB20 be the rocket ship we all imagined it to be when the lap times really count? FP2 was relatively incident free, other than Valterri Bottas being called to the stewards for crossing the pit lane on a red light. For this Bottas has received a reprimand. 5 reprimands in a season will result in a 10 place grid penalty.  Lando Norris made a mistake on his flying lap and was unable to set a better time as a result and ended up p20. What will tomorrow bring?
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FP1 Bahrain 29/02/24

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After what seems like a long winter break Formula 1 was back today for round 1 in Bahrain. Windy conditions on track made things a bit tricky for some of the drivers and the weather is supposed to stay the same until Saturday when the wind calms down. All 20 drivers started on the medium compound tires.  Daniel Ricciardo topped the results with last years champion Max Verstappen coming in at 6th. Max was heard on the team radio saying the car was "miles off" what he wanted. Is this an indication of how the weekend will go or is it just the drivers getting used to the cars and the track?   
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