Rate the race result: 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix

2012 Bahrain Grand Prix

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The Bahrain Grand Prix weekend was the focus of a bitter row over whether the race should go ahead given the situation in the country.

This had a clear effect on the outcome of our regular ‘Rate the Race’ poll. Some readers gave the race the lowest possible rating in protest at it having gone ahead at all.

There was also a significant drop in the number of people participating in the vote at all – a 21.5% fall compared to the first three races of the year. Several commenters said they had not watched the race on principle.

The race, which saw Sebastian Vettel hold off Kimi Raikkonen for his first win of the year, was rated 6.904 out of ten, the lowest of the season so far, but higher than the last three Bahrain Grands Prix.

In a post-race discussion dominated by the political side of things, here’s what F1 Fanatic readers had to say:

The events surrounding the weekend – from the protests, the violent suppression, the protester tragically killed, the trouble experienced by Force India and Sauber, the blackout of Force India, the propaganda act from the regime, and the announcement of widespread arrests of protesters and journalists – have left a very bad taste in my mouth which has overshadowed the Grand Prix.
Lin1876

Others disagreed that F1’s willingness to do business with the Bahrain government reflected badly on it:

I grew up in Bahrain and spent 27 years there. The unrest has been happening there since 1993. So because a country has its issues, we shouldn’t have a sport there? So we shouldn’t have had any of the Bahrain Grands Prix if that is what you’re saying.

The only reason that this is been put all out of proportion is because of the media. Maybe we should stop the F1 in Brazil because of the Button issue last year, or maybe stop China F1 because they have to much poverty? F1 is is about racing not about a country’s issues.
Will

Damonsmedley took issue with the claim that the situation in Bahrain was just a media creation:

There were police and security forces keeping everyone away from the track and out of Manama so F1 personnel wouldn’t come across anything other than pleasant and smiling pro-F1 locals.

Some naive people in F1 seem to have fallen for it, but the majority saw through it. Journalists were reprimanded and many were taken aside and given a good talking to for mentioning everything happening outside the track.

One protester that died earlier had his body withheld from his family until the Grand Prix was finished. It’s all very disgusting and calling this weekend anything other than a complete failure and disaster would be lying.
Damonsmedley

Some simply chose not to rate the race in light of the situation:

I agree with the sentiment that it should not have been held. It did go ahead though, and I would feel wrong giving it a mark of one for non-racing reasons. Therefore, I’m abstaining.
Estesark

As for the race, some were disappointed to see Raikkonen slip back in the final stint:

I didn’t expect the performance of the Lotus cars. Raikkonen blew a chance of a victory, I think. Really hope Rosberg doesn’t get a penalty, his defensive driving was a highlight of the race.
Matty No 2

The effect of tyres on the racing divided opinion. Some appreciated what was clearly a more exciting race than F1’s last visit to Bahrain:

Better than your usual Bahrain bore-fest, but the tyres made the race exciting – not the track. Some good action up and down the field but I was disappointed that Raikkonen’s pace didn’t hold up.
djdaveyp85

While others echoed Michael Schumacher’s comments:

I appreciate the new tyres making the races exciting, but I fear we’re starting to see a trend developing too far into the strategy side and less towards the racing side.

It didn’t seem like anyone could really go flat out at any point in the race unless they wanted to shred their tyres.
Matt

And regardless of the developments in Bahrain since last year, there remain those who think F1 already had a good reason not to visit the circuit:

If it wasn’t for Lotus, for the mishaps that threw McLaren in the middle of the pack and for the fourth different winner this season, I’m afraid this would have been an insanely boring race.

As a fan of European circuits I’m also convinced Bahrain is just the first on a list of circuits that we could very well do without.
Antonio Nartea

Past rate the race results

Bahrain Grand Prix rate the race results

RaceRating
2008 Bahrain Grand Prix5.364
2009 Bahrain Grand Prix6.420
2010 Bahrain Grand Prix4.587
2012 Bahrain Grand Prix6.904

What did you think of the Bahrain Grand Prix? Should the race have gone ahead? Have your say in the comments.

2012 F1 season


Browse all 2012 F1 season articles

Image © Lotus F1 Team/LAT

41 comments on “Rate the race result: 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix”

  1. that weekend really felt like having a party at a funeral.

    1. You’re the first to comment but that’s already COTD.

    2. xeroxpt (@)
      3rd May 2012, 4:34

      Same feeling, its just like dying your grandma that you never knew and find out that she was bucket loaded.

      1. xeroxpt (@)
        3rd May 2012, 17:06

        “How not to live your life” Hipocrisy.

  2. I ask myself how giving the lowest rating to the race for political issues helps in any way the people in Bahrain…

    1. It doesn’t, it’s just their way of voicing their dissatisfaction with the race going ahead.

      1. sid_prasher (@)
        2nd May 2012, 15:06

        My concern is that now people can vote randomly to voice their opinion on the host nation rather than the race itself.

    2. @pejte I don’t recall anyone saying “I’m rating this race one out of ten to help the people of Bahrain”.

  3. To be fair I enjoyed the race yes I agree with @Dev but if you just forget everything & think about racing then you will find out that this was the best Bahrain Gp ever.

    1. Very true @waisf1, and the rating is not representative at all of how good the race actually was (better than China in my opinion).

    2. @wasiF1 Yep. It was a decent race in my opinion.

  4. sid_prasher (@)
    2nd May 2012, 11:57

    I am just glad that the weekend is behind us…it created such sharp division in opinion here.
    And I wish the best to the people of Bahrain and hope they will succeed in changing the political system there. The race itself was the best Bahrain GP ever.

  5. Glad its over. It was never nice seeing a bunch of hypocrites posting about the oppression of one while supporting the oppression of others.

    I much prefer racing news.

    1. I have no idea what side of the Bahrain debate that comment refers to.

    2. I know exactly what’s being referred to. And such archaic views are so evidently out of touch with 21st century attitudes they are almost not worthy of comment.

      Ukraine has been censured by Austria over their treatment of their former Prime Minister. Austria will not be sending officials to any Ukraine Euro 2012 football events.

      More monumentally, Germany has offered to host Ukraines scheduled matches in protest of their behaviour.

      Social media is also giving the previously disenfranchised non radical majority a voice. And F1 better start listening, because they are no special case that will be ignored.

  6. I wish with all my heart that violent protests break out in Singapore, Valencia, Abu Dhabi , India and South Korea as well, so that we won’t go racing there. Then I also hope the mayors of the cities of Spa, Imola, Suzuka, Milan, and Nürburg start handing out flowers and free ice cream to all the citizens, so that we can go racing there permanently and more often.

    1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      3rd May 2012, 0:49

      Ice cream? Kimi is already racing!

  7. I’m surprised hardly anyone has compared F1’s Bahrain debacle to the pressure currently on Ukraine: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17892514http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/30/euro-2012-ukraine-diplomatic-crisis

    They are extremely similar in my mind, and it’s an even bigger sporting event. Political prisoners on hunger strike, violent protests, even bomb attacks. Should football be holding it’s second biggest event in the country?

    I also think it’s interesting that Bahrain has barely been mentioned in the press since. It’s either reassuring that things have quietened down, or incredibly sad that the rest of the world has such a short attention span.

    1. The world HAS a short attention span.

      1. And usually toward whatever we re being fed.

        Which is strange, more and more people are educated but still we fall for same things.

    2. f1s debacle is hardly a debacle really, it porbably did more good for bahrain having the race on, as most bahrainians supported the event as it gave world wide attention to their plight. the f1 drivers were never in danger, as most bahrainians were just happy that their plight would get more media attention world wide, and they had nothing against the world of f1. if the race was cancelled like last year, less people would know about the troubles there.

    3. I think that’s a reflection of what’s really happening there. From what we’ve seen the situation hasn’t guaranteed the attention of the international media, it wasn’t until F1 came that more noises were made so i agree with poster above that if anything, it helped bring some attention to whatever it is they’re going through.

    4. Out here in Mugello (actually scarperia to be accurate) the mood amongst the average team member I’ve spoken to is that they wish they had not had to go to Bahrain.

      These people do not,as accused, live in an F1 bubble and are already concerned over the 2013 calendar.

      Specifically that Bahrain will appear again without proper discussion. At least 5 team members I’ve spoken to say they will this time request exemption from a future proposed Bahrain event unless substantive change is apparent in the ongoing dialogue between the 2 sides.

  8. Tom (@newdecade)
    2nd May 2012, 13:34

    What was the average with the protest votes at 1 clipped out?

    1. Yeap, this is a good idea to post just for the sake of it. Because right now politics is a bit mixed in it.

      P.S. And also to clip-out 10 too.

    2. Yeah, surprised how high the average is already, given the number of votes is down, and the number of look-at-me-I’m-voting-1 “votes”.

      I think the perfect 2012 race is still to come, with a few teams in contention and a proper battle for the lead. Red Bull aren’t throwing the kitchen sink at the Mugello test, so I hope they don’t leap ahead of everyone else again…

    3. @newdecade For the sake of fairness, let’s look at it both ways.

      If those who voted 1/10 hadn’t voted, the average would be 7.4/10.

      If we assume that the missing 21% of voters were similarly inclined to those who voted 1/10, and recalculate accordingly, the average would be 5.6/10.

      I’m not sure why @maldikons wants to see the figure without those who rated it 10/10 but it’s no less arbitrary than the other two so why not. That comes out at 6.6/10.

      1. I based my idea on the fact that some assume that all 1-voters voted because of moral questions which they turned on on Bahrain weekend and forgot the day after, on the other side i would assume that 10-voters are the blind Bahraini loyalists who doesn’t understand the problem.

        I would take the courage to claim that it is quite obvious that the race (and only the race itself) wasn’t neither 1, or 10 so for the sake of “lol” it would be nice to clip them out – without any agendas or further nonsense.

      2. Tom (@newdecade)
        2nd May 2012, 19:35

        Thanks, just curiosity really. Naturally the political side was the biggest story of the weekend and it is only right that people expressed their opinions on that. That said, many people also chose to watch the race as a motorsport event in itself, and I wanted to see what the apolitical opinions were. Really for this one there are two very different but equally valid results of rate the race.

    4. Based on the poll results shown in the original rate the race article:

      There were 699 votes. Since Keith only gives numbers to the nearest percentage point, these reconstructed totals are only accurate to within +/- 4 votes
      1: 56 votes
      2: 14 votes
      3: 7 votes
      4: 14 votes
      5: 28 votes
      6: 70 votes
      7: 168 votes
      8: 189 votes
      9: 97 votes
      10: 56 votes

      Based on that distribution, we can guess somewhere around 10 votes for the race actually being bad enough to warrant a 1 without political considerations. This gives an average score of 7.34. I don’t recall actually voting in the poll, but I’d probably have voted the race a 6 or 7 personally. I think the “adjusted” score is a worse reflection of the race than the unadjusted one. Maybe the people who didn’t watch the race and didn’t vote have higher standards for racing as well as political stability in host countries?

      1. When you not doing it yourself, you always have a higher standards towards the matter :))))))

  9. I think that’s probably a little less than representative of the race score wise, but it could have been worse I guess. I think I voted 8/10.

    The political situation was never really going to harm my enjoyment of the race. Tarmac is tarmac to me.

    A good balance of comments here, well done.

  10. I know this is off topic but I’m dreading the result of the driver of the weekend poll.
    Poll position, fastest lap and the win.
    If it was anyone else apart from Vettel they would have won it by miles.

    1. Seriously. Do we have to call in Captain Obvious?

  11. I found it interesting how we are always asked to not let the results of the race influence our vote, yet voting negatively based on outside political events was almost encouraged. I voted 8/10, a surprisingly good race, but dragged a bit in the middle. Still upset by McLaren’s pit-stop troubles.

    1. voting negatively based on outside political events was almost encouraged

      Nothing of the sort was done. It wasn’t even mentioned in the article, which was no different from the usual Rate the Race introduction.

  12. the best part of bahrain was Schumachers tyre winge! hahaha, he really needs to get on with the job, Vettel, Raikonnen and his teammate are. Mercedes improved a lot in the past 2 races with tyre wear, yet schumacher is still not getting any points. rosberg has grabbed his oportunity without complaining. its tyre he left the sport in a dignified manner, as his driving ability now is making his previous achievements seem like they are more down to the car, especially the Ferrari years where he had preferential tyres from Bridgestone. now is your chance to show how great you are Shumacher, not what a bad sport you are, which you have been your whole career with so much cheating controversy.

    1. Yeah you are right, at last someone with some authority stands up and states what a joke the tyres are making of F1

    2. I don’t remember him struggling in 1999 and 2000, where everyone used the same tyres.

  13. Was on edge of the seat through out whole race.

    It must be very sucky to be a McLaren fan :) So fast on Saturdays, such poor performance on Sundays (respectively to their standards). Button in Melbourne so far the best thing, everything else is down hill, driver wise and pit stops. Hamilton looks like average driver on Sundays.

    They think they are defending a Championship that isnt exactly theirs just yet, wont be surprised if they end up 3-4th in Constructors. Hamilton needs to pick up the slack and be more aggressive in races.

    Exited about the rest of the season!

  14. Its rate the race ! no rate the country we went to or rate rate the politics of that country !! The race was quite good !! really good ! enjoyed it ! i have no problems with going there whatsoever ! because i support f1 ! i want to see races ! if u want to talk about not going to certain countrys then why not china ? which is worse !

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