2016 Bahrain Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps

15 comments on “2016 Bahrain Grand Prix lap times and fastest laps”

1. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   3rd April 2016, 19:04

   I guess Rosberg was playing it safe and not really pushing for Hamilton to be that close while running in more traffic AND having car damage. Would have been fun to see what Vettel could have done today.

   But Haas and Grosjean made sure we were entertained, with a very strong performance from Rookie Vandoorne and Pascal Wehrlein as well.
   1. 

      Strontium (@strontium)
      3rd April 2016, 21:29

      It’s unbelievable how good Wehrlein was today! And Vandoorne, but for me Wehrlein is one to really watch this season. I hope the pace of the Manor is to stay!
      1. 

         Cranio
         4th April 2016, 13:42

         Agree… Wehrlein will get some points this year. 6th best time with that car?
   2. 

      Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
      4th April 2016, 17:40

      I’m pretty sure Merc/Rosberg played it safe and were not pushing more than needed to keep the gap to Kimi. According to Merc/Hamilton, he lost 1 sec per lap because of the damage, meaning we could probably have laps around 1’33.xxx for those mighty Merc. Best for reliability not to push unnecessarily and best for the show that they don’t smash everyone hope by building a gap of 30 sec over Ferrari.

      Impressed by Vandoorne and Wehrlein who did really great this week end, nice to see a Marussia fighting for position in the midfield. While Grosjean proves once again he was the man for the job at Haas, he should also be glad not being in Lotus/Renault anymore. Everyone saw this move as a step backwards in his carrier while it’s in fact the opposite and he is showing everyone what capable driver he is.
2. 

   ARD
   3rd April 2016, 19:29

   Heck, a Manor 6th fastest?!
   1. 

      NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
      3rd April 2016, 19:58

      Well when fastest race lap is 5s of of pole.. Its not to dramatic for Manor to post 6s of pole time.
   2. 

      F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
      3rd April 2016, 20:50

      Incredible lap indeed. He was one of the drivers to switch to the supersofts at the end of the race, but his pace is even more impressive given that he still was carrying 14 laps of fuel. His degradation was massive though.
      1. 

         Joh
         4th April 2016, 21:05

         Well his degradation was massive. he looses much time behind the Sauber, even his teammate was 1,5-2 Seconds faster at the end of the race. But this one lap was amazing.
      2. 

         Zanquis
         4th April 2016, 23:14

         Yeah, impressive yes, smart not so much but he will learn. He pushed too much out of his tires those laps.
         If he pushed a second or so less out in that lap he could have done a faster last stint and gain a spot, Magnussen might have been in reach even.
3. 

   Peter Jørsing
   3rd April 2016, 21:01

   Manor 6th fastest congratulation
4. 

   Mick Harrold (@mickharrold)
   4th April 2016, 9:24

   Compare Ricciardo and Grojean. That HAAS is fast. Probably a better race strategy from RB was the difference there.
   Then throw in Verstappen to the chart. There is hardly anything in it with these 3. (And their team mates)
   Lastly, throw in the Hulk. Fast, but clearly a bad strategy.

   My conclusion, the midfield is tight this year. Williams bombed it this time, but my conclusion is that there are 8 drivers capable of being “Best of the Rest” on a given day. And McLaren may join them later in the year. Nice!
5. 

   Cyber
   4th April 2016, 9:37

   Nico winning and easily posting fastest lap of the race. And a Manor up in 6th?
   Just shows how powerful and superior the Mercedes engine really still is !

   Kimi/Ferrari 0.7 slower shows that they actually did very well during race to bring that home in 2nd place.
   Red Bull is like 1 sec faster than the factory team Renault indicates fantastic design/aerodynamics on the Red Bull and/or terrible poor ditto at Renault?

   McLaren/Honda – Still massive work to do to catch up…
   Williams – They have the Mercedes engine, so eh. What happened?
6. 

   kpcart
   4th April 2016, 14:05

   the lap times I saw during he race disprove what Mercedes said that Hamilton was losing up to 1 second a lap because of damage. if that was true he could have won the race by 1 minute from Rosberg without damage, and we know that is not possible as they were equal on pace this week. hamiltons car seemed to lose nearly no time in reality – maybe .1 or .2 seconds, and rosberg didn’t have to push as much at the front and got to control the race without pushing 100% Raikonnens speed tells me the quicker driver at Ferrari could have got close to the win if the engine did not blow. next few races should be interesting.
7. 

   Cyber
   4th April 2016, 21:29

   Just informed by some engineers that several race stewards in Bahrein were good old private friends of Palmer Sr. Thereby hinting towards reason for the severe penalty Magnussen received during free practice delegating him to start the race from the pitlane. Does this have any level of truth in it?
   I would expect that no race steward can have conflicting areas of interest?
   1. 

      1234
      6th April 2016, 17:56

      The “severe penalty” for Magnussen (which wasn’t even that severe considering that both Renaults qualified in 19th and 20th) is explicitly stated in the rules, with no room for interpretation. He entered the pits under a red light, but instead of stopping to be controlled he drove to his crew, which started working on the car, thus preventing the car from being weighed in unaltered stage.
      According to the rules, this is an automatic disqualification and start from the pit lane, without possible exceptions.
      The only way of “tricking” Magnussen into a penalty would’ve been to make a deliberately ambiguous call to the weighbridge. The fact that the red light flashed in front of Kvyat AND Magnussen is what confused the Dane, so at least this “theory” is not automatically 100% impossible.
      Nevertheless, this smacks so heavily of tinfoil that it could lead to heavy metal poisoning.
      Even if malicious stewards had deliberately sent an ambiguous signal, Magnussen would’ve easily avoided a penalty by stopping at the pit entry to wait for further instructions. Or the team could’ve refused to work on the car, pushing it back to the weighbridge instead. Zero problems in both cases. But they didn’t. Both Magnussen and the team made small mistakes in a situation where the rules unambiguously prescribe zero tolerance. That’s unfortunate but not unfair by any stretch of the imagination.
      Also, how on earth is being friends with an ex driver a conflict of interest? That’s a private matter. Being the manager of a certain driver or betting money on him – now that would be a conflict of interests.
      Furthermore, why would anyone want to hurt Magnussen’s chances? It’s not like they’re fighting for the championship with that car, and Palmer isn’t facing any imminent danger of having his reputation damaged. After all, he’s a rookie, and his team mate isn’t. He qualified better in Melbourne, so there’s really no reason to pull Magnussen’s plug – even if there was a conspiracy of evil-minded stewards who desperately want to further Palmer’s cause, doing it at this stage of the season, in a way that doesn’t really incapacitate Magnussen, would be utterly ineffective.
      To sum it up:
      There was absolutely no irregular behaviour on the stewards’ side, allegations of conflicting interests are very far-fetched, and the conspirers would have to be shockingly evil, and at least twice as stupid.
      To be fair, though, I can picture a few stewards being friends with Jonathan Palmer. And that’s the only aspect that doesn’t shout “nonsense!” in all of this.

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