Heroics Into Saint Devote

Back again. I have just greedily stuffed a large Dominos pizza down my gullet. Topped with tandori chicken, sliced peppers and onions. And I’m ready for round two here in Bahrain. No, not really. I’m just rotting on my sofa, waiting to get this afternoon session underway.

Alrighty! So the wind has picked up now, but nobody seems to be rushing out of the garage. Infact, the most interesting thing we have seen for half an hour is a pigeon landing on the catchfence. I didn’t think they were seen outside of cities in the United Kingdom.

Only 40 minutes into the session and FINALLY! A car! On the track! It’s Hadjar in the Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls car. Nothing much of note. Other than how I’ve decided to do rather like the Tag Heuer branding over the old Rolex at Pit-Out. Same for the on-screen graphics too. Great stuff. The track temperature has reached 22 degrees Celsius, which is around 72 degrees Fahrenheit for my American viewers.

The RB21 has a curious upright element beneath the wing mirror. It’s a small piece of, what I can only presume is, carbon fibre, which seems to only be structural. Holding the mirror up so Verstappen can look back at Lawson when he laps him? Hahaha.

Sky F1’s Ted Kravitz has just claimed that Lando Norris is Mclaren’s only title challenger. This seems unfair, no? I think Oscar Piastri is plenty competent enough to take on a fight for the honor. But we’ll soon find out.

Here comes the Scuderia with Charles Leclerc at the helm, piloting his SF-25 with the largest aero rakes I have ever seen. I would LOVE to see the kind of data something with the same sheer magnitude as those could pull.

Now. Verstappen has just gone 0.016 seconds SLOWER than rookie, Kimi Antonelli. Though he is on 2-step harder tyres than Antonelli was when he set his lap, but that aside, I think this young Italian could really be a star of the future. Super impressive.

Another spinner! Hadjar this time in the Number 6. The rear just got away from him in Turn 4, which could well be caused by the gusty conditions around the circuit. But stylishly, he turns it into a nice 360-degree rotation and collects it well. Neatly done by another one of our rookies for the year.

I’m a sucker for a great statistic. And here’s one. Across a race weekend, it seems red bull can generate around 1.5 billion bytes of data and the team run 5 billion race simulations. Incredible stuff.

Now time for some further wing mirror talk. The VF-25 creation by Haas has two ‘eye-lid’ like components above and below the mirror element, which is not replicated by others. Some teams are running single elements on either the top or bottom of their mirrors. Aston Martin for example do not share neither a top nor bottom element to their mirrors.

Whilst the run into Turn 1 has been re-profiled and flattened out, only one of the cars is bottoming out and sparking, and that is the Williams of Sainz. This could be because they’re just running the car lower than the rest of the paddock.

Now we’re talking. Sidepods! The biggest talking point of the 2022 season. After Mercedes’ dramatic miscalculation with the ‘zero-sidepod’ design, teams are staying faithful to the sidepods. VCARB’s sidepods feature an extreme ‘overbite’ with the bottom part of it being barely visible from the side. Very slim and compact. Haas however, are running a much bulkier, underbitten sidepod. Maybe this is the product of Haas abandoning Geunther Steiner’s cost-cap-saving ‘3 man pitwall’.

Zak Brown has just been asked about McLaren’s famous ‘Papaya Rules’. He claims this season is ‘business as usual’ for the Woking-based outfit. He also says its “down to them [the drivers, who are] free to race and they know the rules.” Curious.

Now the Red Bull mechanics are working on Max’s car with torches. There’s claims of a powercut to the paddock. I suspect Roscoe is behind it. Nevermind. The floodlights have just gone out and we’re getting word of a circuit-wide powercut. And unsurprisingly, the session is red flagged. Local time 17:04.

This is a great time to note the Ferrari nosecone and front wing structure. The nosecone itself is sleek and uniform init’s shape and length and features a very round end which is not connected to the lower-most element of the front wing. The VCARB however, features a slimmer, much more pointy front nose which is actually connected to the lowest most element.

Aha! Some good news! After around 66 minutes, the session is back underway! We have also had confirmation from the stewards in race control that the session will be extended by an hour to account for the lost running. Well played FIA.

47 minutes left for the day, and I’m noticing that the RB21 seems to be a direct sister to the well-earned retiree that the RB20 became. It seems many parts have been carried over. Is this Red Bull being happy with their design? Or is this Red Bull saving money so they can pour more funds into 2026?

Here we are. The final classification for day one:

1. Lando NORRIS – Mclaren – 1:30:430
2. George RUSSELL – Mercedes AMG Petronas – + 0.157
3. Max VERSTAPPEN – Oracle Red Bull Racing – + 0.244
4. Charles LECLERC – Scuderia Ferrari HP – + 0.448
5. Carlos SAINZ – Atlassian Williams Racing – + 0.525
6. Pierre GASLY – BWT Alpine F1 Team – + 0.923
7. Andrea Kimi ANTONELLI – Mercedes AMG Petronas – + 0.998
8. Liam LAWSON – Oracle Red Bull Racing – + 1.130
9. Alexander ALBON – Atlassian Williams Racing – + 1.143
10. Yuki Tsunoda – Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls – + 1.180
11. Isack HADJAR – Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls – + 1.201
12. Gabriel BORTOLETO – Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber – + 1.260
13. Lewis HAMILTON – Scuderia Ferrari HP – + 1.404
14. Jack DOOHAN – BWT Alpine F1 Team – + 1.411
15. Fernando ALONSO – Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team – + 1.444
16. Lance STROLL – Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team – + 1.519
17. Oscar PIASTRI – Mclaren – + 1.654
18. Nico HULKENBERG – Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber – + 1.739
19. Esteban OCON – Moneygram Haas F1 Team – + 3.170
20. Ollie BEARMAN – Moneygram Haas F1 Team – + 5.092

Lots of things to keep an eye on as the season begins. Let’s see, shall we?