Friday’s practice times in Bahrain gave Red Bull some cause for optimism. Daniel Ricciardo did the third-quickest lap, within a tenth of a second of both Sebastian Vettel’s pace-setting Ferrari and the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
But temperatures at the track were so high on Friday the lap times probably bore little relation to what we can expect to see over the rest of the weekend.
“This is a pretty tough circuit at the best of times,” said Mercedes’ technical director James Allison. “But it is unseasonably hot this year, which made it a brutal day for the cars and the drivers.” Saturday is expected to be almost as warm but the race, crucially, is forecast to be cooler.
Ricciardo admitted his car’s one-lap pace in the low-grip conditions on Friday “looks competitive – but probably too competitive for now.”
“I do like it but I expect Ferrari and Mercedes to sneak further ahead [on Saturday]” he added.
As well as the heat, the track was especially ‘green’ and grip-less on Friday. This goes some way towards explaining why this year’s cars, which were 3.7 seconds quicker than their 2016 pace in China, were a few tenths slower than last year’s Friday pace.
Ferrari and Mercedes looked close again over their longer stints, with Ferrari coming on stronger towards the end, as was the pattern in the last two races. Ricciardo admitted that in “the long runs [they] looked like they had a bit more pace so that was probably a bit more representative” than the single-lap pace.
Longest stint comparison – second practice
This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint. Very slow laps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, right-click to reset:
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Complete practice times
Combined practice times
Pos | Driver | Car | FP1 | FP2 | Total laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’32.697 | 1’31.310 | 50 |
2 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’35.002 | 1’31.351 | 62 |
3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’33.097 | 1’31.376 | 50 |
4 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’42.333 | 1’31.478 | 40 |
5 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’34.636 | 1’31.594 | 63 |
6 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1’34.927 | 1’31.883 | 50 |
7 | Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 1’34.246 | 1’32.079 | 61 |
8 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’33.566 | 1’32.245 | 41 |
9 | Romain Grosjean | Haas-Ferrari | 1’34.564 | 1’32.505 | 55 |
10 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’34.838 | 1’32.707 | 48 |
11 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | 1’35.579 | 1’32.854 | 54 |
12 | Esteban Ocon | Force India-Mercedes | 1’34.332 | 1’32.875 | 61 |
13 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1’35.068 | 1’32.876 | 57 |
14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Honda | 1’34.372 | 1’32.897 | 45 |
15 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’34.095 | 1’33.319 | 56 |
16 | Lance Stroll | Williams-Mercedes | 1’34.322 | 1’33.361 | 61 |
17 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’35.888 | 1’33.944 | 57 |
18 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Toro Rosso-Renault | 1’36.079 | 1’34.072 | 21 |
19 | Pascal Wehrlein | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’35.959 | 1’34.117 | 52 |
20 | Stoffel Vandoorne | McLaren-Honda | 1’34.997 | 1’34.230 | 18 |
2017 Bahrain Grand Prix
- Vettel voted Driver of the Weekend for the fourth time in six races
- 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- Bahrain Grand Prix gets second-highest rating in a decade
- 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix Star Performers
khizar ahmed (@khizar)
15th April 2017, 10:48
i think redbulls are still half a second down on the ferrari who are still 2 tenths down on Mercedes.
AndrewW
15th April 2017, 11:26
RIC is probably right, but Merc are looking confused in conditions that are challenging to their package. While Ferrari aren’t bulletproof, they look more composed than Merc. Ferrari to win courtesy of a longer first stint. HAM looks and sounds panicky, so I figure BOT will beat him both in quali and race.
Bruno cascimiro (@bcoliver)
15th April 2017, 12:15
“HAM looks and sounds panicky, so I figure BOT will beat him both in quali and race”
Can you provide some evidence to this claim? I’m interested to know how you came to that conclusion.
Olav (@okersen)
15th April 2017, 11:33
How much racing will there be on the track before today’s qualifying? Is there any chance of the top qualifying times being faster than last year?
Jere (@jerejj)
15th April 2017, 13:59
@okersen ”Is there any chance of the top qualifying times being faster than last year?”
– This year’s pole lap will without a doubt be faster than last year’s. The real question is how big the difference to the previous year’s pole time will be.
B (@)
15th April 2017, 14:02
Mercedes still has the advantage on Qualifying, and Bottas was only 1/1000th of a second slower than Vettel, and Vettel thought he was almost sure he had pole in China with that lap.
ForzaRogo (@forzarogo)
15th April 2017, 14:56
When did he ever say he was sure he had pole? He said he made a mistake under braking into the hairpin, but then said if he didn’t make it he still wouldn’t have had pole, so I don’t know where you got that idea.