The late appearance of the Safety Car in the Bahrain Grand Prix handed an advantage to any driver who had got their stint on the medium tyre out of the way earleir in the race.
Among those still to run the harder tyres was Lewis Hamilton, who thought Nico Rosberg would be able to pass him using the soft tyres. The 2008 world champion had to use every trick he knew to stay ahead.
The Safety Car also played into Red Bull’s hands as both their drivrs had used the medium tyre early. Sebastian Vettel had been one of only two drivers to start the race on it after qualifying outside the top ten.
Only Ferrari, whose car seemed to lack performance whichever tyre they put on it, ran more than one stint on the medium. Fernando Alonso at least had the benefit of two fresh sets to finish the race on, but he and team mate Kimi Raikkonen came home last of the points-scorers.
The performance of Force India’s drivers seemed to inspire their pit crew into producing the fastest pit stop of the race. Nico Hulkenberg’s lap 35 stop was just 13 thousandths of a second quicker than the next best, performed by Ferrari, who had been the fastest team in the first two races.
Bahrain Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
Stint 1 | Stint 2 | Stint 3 | Stint 4 | Stint 5 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lewis Hamilton | Soft (19) | Soft (22) | Medium (16) | ||
Nico Rosberg | Soft (21) | Medium (20) | Soft (16) | ||
Sergio Perez | Soft (16) | Soft (18) | Medium (23) | ||
Daniel Ricciardo | Soft (18) | Medium (17) | Soft (22) | ||
Nico Hulkenberg | Soft (15) | Soft (20) | Medium (22) | ||
Sebastian Vettel | Medium (16) | Soft (18) | Soft (23) | ||
Felipe Massa | Soft (13) | Soft (15) | Soft (10) | Medium (19) | |
Valtteri Bottas | Soft (10) | Soft (15) | Soft (15) | Medium (17) | |
Fernando Alonso | Soft (12) | Soft (16) | Medium (13) | Medium (16) | |
Kimi Raikkonen | Soft (13) | Soft (20) | Medium (8) | Medium (16) | |
Daniil Kvyat | Soft (10) | Soft (14) | Medium (15) | Soft (18) | |
Romain Grosjean | Soft (13) | Soft (15) | Medium (9) | Soft (20) | |
Max Chilton | Soft (11) | Soft (17) | Medium (12) | Soft (17) | |
Pastor Maldonado | Soft (19) | Soft (20) | Medium (1) | Soft (17) | |
Kamui Kobayashi | Soft (15) | Soft (20) | Medium (22) | ||
Jules Bianchi | Soft (10) | Soft (3) | Medium (18) | Soft (9) | Medium (16) |
Jenson Button | Soft (17) | Soft (18) | Medium (20) | ||
Kevin Magnussen | Soft (14) | Soft (11) | Soft (13) | Medium (2) | |
Esteban Gutierrez | Soft (12) | Soft (15) | Soft (12) | ||
Marcus Ericsson | Soft (11) | Soft (15) | Soft (7) | ||
Jean-Eric Vergne | Soft (1) | Medium (13) | Soft (4) | ||
Adrian Sutil | Medium (7) | Soft (6) | Soft (4) |
Bahrain Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
Driver | Team | Pit stop time | Gap | On lap | |
1 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 24.440 | 35 | |
2 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 24.453 | 0.013 | 41 |
3 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 24.476 | 0.036 | 17 |
4 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 24.493 | 0.053 | 41 |
5 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 24.528 | 0.088 | 13 |
6 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren | 24.559 | 0.119 | 25 |
7 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 24.575 | 0.135 | 38 |
8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 24.576 | 0.136 | 28 |
9 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren | 24.611 | 0.171 | 14 |
10 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 24.687 | 0.247 | 19 |
11 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 24.697 | 0.257 | 16 |
12 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 24.706 | 0.266 | 18 |
13 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 24.737 | 0.297 | 34 |
14 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 24.757 | 0.317 | 15 |
15 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 24.816 | 0.376 | 35 |
16 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 24.851 | 0.411 | 21 |
17 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 24.907 | 0.467 | 41 |
18 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 24.964 | 0.524 | 16 |
19 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 25.009 | 0.569 | 13 |
20 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 25.032 | 0.592 | 28 |
21 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 25.040 | 0.600 | 10 |
22 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 25.068 | 0.628 | 25 |
23 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 25.146 | 0.706 | 41 |
24 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 25.192 | 0.752 | 13 |
25 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 25.245 | 0.805 | 35 |
26 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber | 25.293 | 0.853 | 7 |
27 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 25.340 | 0.900 | 24 |
28 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 25.345 | 0.905 | 39 |
29 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham | 25.367 | 0.927 | 11 |
30 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 25.383 | 0.943 | 40 |
31 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 25.395 | 0.955 | 19 |
32 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 25.415 | 0.975 | 33 |
33 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber | 25.543 | 1.103 | 12 |
34 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren | 25.572 | 1.132 | 38 |
35 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber | 25.633 | 1.193 | 27 |
36 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus | 25.693 | 1.253 | 37 |
37 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 25.756 | 1.316 | 10 |
38 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 25.770 | 1.330 | 12 |
39 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham | 25.819 | 1.379 | 26 |
40 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 25.858 | 1.418 | 11 |
41 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 25.866 | 1.426 | 31 |
42 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 25.896 | 1.456 | 28 |
43 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 25.897 | 1.457 | 14 |
44 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 25.980 | 1.540 | 40 |
45 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 25.981 | 1.541 | 40 |
46 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 26.064 | 1.624 | 10 |
47 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 26.186 | 1.746 | 34 |
48 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 26.440 | 2.000 | 39 |
49 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham | 26.628 | 2.188 | 35 |
50 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham | 27.124 | 2.684 | 15 |
51 | Max Chilton | Marussia | 27.233 | 2.793 | 28 |
52 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia | 29.729 | 5.289 | 13 |
53 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 33.895 | 9.455 | 1 |
54 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus | 34.249 | 9.809 | 40 |
55 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber | 40.747 | 16.307 | 13 |
Mike Dee (@mike-dee)
6th April 2014, 23:43
Was Sutil planning to do an 8-stop race based on the first two stint lengths?
OOliver
7th April 2014, 7:25
Mercedes have had to dig very deep to solve their tyre issues from last year for which they suffered lots of humilation and I think it had paid off handsomely this season. Not only have they been very fast, they have had the least degradation on their tyres.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
7th April 2014, 9:51
If i was to be hyper critical of the Mercedes team i would say that their decision to put Nico on the medium for the second stint was intended to keep the two cars apart for as long as possible. Maybe they didn’t fancy their chances of bringing two cars home if it was 57 laps of side by side racing.
But also, i don’t see how Nico’s strategy was supposed to pay off. As i understand it, the medium tyre was between 0.5-0.7 secs per lap slower so the best strategy would be to keep the soft for as long as possible. Nico did 21 laps at the start (on full fuel) so he should have been able to do at least the same at the end, meaning his medium stint should have been 15 laps at most. They couldn’t have gambled on a safety car, so why did he do 20 laps on the medium? Maybe the performance difference wasn’t as big as expected? I just don’t see how he would have had a chance to win the race without a safety car, despite seemingly being a little faster than Lewis when both were on the same tyre at the start.
frood19 (@frood19)
7th April 2014, 10:27
i thought he might be trying to one-stop, but that definitely wouldn’t have worked based on the gap hamilton had pulled before the safety car.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
7th April 2014, 11:55
Having now read the press conference it seems they had planned this strategy before the race (presumably in the event of being jumped at the start). But still doesn’t explain why he spent so many laps on the medium, unless as you said he was trying to one stop, but that was never mentioned so i assume wasn’t viable.
Khalid (@leblep)
7th April 2014, 11:58
I believe they didn’t expect Lewis to have a 10 second gap by the time second pitstops arrived.
Joe (@joetoml1n)
7th April 2014, 13:28
I’m not sure, they said the performance deficit was less than expected, so surely they could of only predicted a larger gap? I thought they were trying to go long enough to smash in 10 good (almost qualy) laps in clean air to close the gap to Hamilton and pass.
Sounds easy on paper doesn’t it!
Khalid (@leblep)
7th April 2014, 21:45
That might be the case as well. Or they might have expected Lewis’ tyres to go off earlier than Rosberg’s and hence the gap to be smaller
68btyme (@steadyb)
7th April 2014, 12:07
I really thought Nico was going to try a one stopper. After hearing the team tell Nico that they we’re going to an alternative strategy when he lost the lead at the start. At the rate he seemed to let Lewis pull away after the first stint, I thought he was trying to hit delta times and not worry about running with Hamilton at that point. It would have been a lot of laps on this medium tires, but maybe Nico could have pulled it off. Dunno.
68btyme (@steadyb)
7th April 2014, 12:08
this=those
DeX
7th April 2014, 16:07
Lewis was faster all weekend, only a small error at turn one on final Q3 lap screwed up another pole for him.
Even without the safety car Nico had this 10 second gap to make up but he would not have got past Lewis. That is a certainty, because he was unable to pass him with new softs and the gap wiped out by the safety car. Lewis is just faster.