Round 4 of the Formula 1 World Championship: Desert race at Twilight

Sakhir hosts a Grand Prix for the 11th time this season, and offers one of the more popular races of the modern F1 era, with it’s 10th anniversary 2014 race in spectacular fashion. The desert-located track features very warm temperatures, dust, and sand around the way and it’s a proper challenge for the F1 teams.

Its a circuit that runs clockwise and covers a total race distance of 308 km, over 57 laps. Mark Webber holds the tracks fastest lap record at 1m 29.527 seconds with Williams back in 2005. Sakhir presents a high need for cooling, medium downforce level, and a fuel consumption of around 1.70kg per lap. It also allows drivers to apply full throttle during 66% of each lap.

Pirelli brings its Soft (yellow) and Medium (white) compounds for this race, and motorsport director Paul Hembery reveals why…

“We have the same tyre choice as we did in China for Bahrain, although there  will  obviously  be  a  bit  more  temperature  involved.  However,  with  the  race taking place in the evening, conditions won’t be as aggressive as they were in Malaysia – or  even Bahrain two years ago, when the race was still run during the day. A defining characteristic of Bahrain now  is  that tyre  performance  changes  over  the  course  of  the  weekend  as  we  slowly  edge  towards afternoon sessions. Last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix had a thrilling finish because of the safety car with 10  laps  to  go,  leading to a great battle between the  two  Mercedes team mates. It’s harder to know what to expect this year – apart from the fact that it’s very unlikely to rain!”