2016 Bahrain Grand Prix team radio transcript

It was another quiet race on the team radios in Bahrain which again suggested the restrictions on what information teams can pass onto their drivers is having a significant effect.

That was certainly a concern for Marcus Ericsson, who wasn’t sure whether his team could tell him if the information he was getting from his dash display was correct.

During the race there were occasional bursts of activity on the radios followed by long silences. A spate of messages around laps ten and eleven were followed by fourteen consecutive laps of silence.

It’s doubtful nothing was broadcast during this time – one message from Rosberg during the race indicated he was receiving updates most laps. Formula One Management may simply have chosen not to broadcast any or could have been experiencing technical problems. Certainly many of the messages broadcast during last year’s race would remain legal under the new rules.

A lot of the team’s post-race discussions were broadcast, included a revealing message from Romain Grosjean after his combative drive to fifth place. Complimented on the quality of his overtaking moves during the race the ex-Lotus racer replied “well I’ve got brakes this year, that helps!”

Go ad-free for just £1 per month

>> Find out more and sign up

2016 Bahrain Grand Prix team radio transcript

Lap*	Driver	Message
PR	From Sebastian Vettel	Okay I’m not sure, I think I might have an engine failure. Yeah I’m losing power.
PR	To Sebastian Vettel	Yeah we do see it.
PR	From Sebastian Vettel	Yeah i think that’s it, do you want me to stop the car?.
PR	To Sebastian Vettel	Yeah stop the car, stop the car, big smoke.
1	From Lewis Hamilton	Something feels wrong with my rear.
1	To Valtteri Bottas	Critical message: We saw an accident, how is the car from your side?
1	From Valtteri Bottas	Everything feels okay from my side, have a look at the front wing from TV or something, but so far all ok.
1	To Valtteri Bottas	Copy that.
1	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	Puncture puncture.
7	From Jenson Button	I think we’ve lost ERS.Or something, I think we’ve lost ERS.
7	To Jenson Button	Jensen there’s nothing we can do.
7	From Jenson Button	[Censored by FOM]. Agh!
9	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	I feel a very strange thing in the rear. Yeah I cannot turn right, the car over-rotates when I turn right.
10	From Carlos Sainz Jnr	There is something, for sure.
10	To Esteban Gutierrez	Nobody behind, box Esteban box. Nobody behind.
10	To Esteban Gutierrez	Okay sorry Esteban, we need to retire the car, very good job so far.
10	From Max Verstappen	Yes.
10	To Daniil Kvyat	Okay Verstappen ahead last lap a…
11	To Lewis Hamilton	Raikkonen third.
11	To Kimi Raikkonen	Hamilton lap time 39.1
25	From Kevin Magnussen	There’s no way I’m going to get past him, He’s like a rocket on the straights.
25	To Kevin Magnussen	Okay understood, the Manor is like a rocket on the straights, understood.
25	To Daniel Ricciardo	Okay mate, it’s time to push now.
32	From Felipe Nasr	Yeah the car is terrible to drive, very difficult.
41	To Kimi Raikkonen	Rosberg is also on option tyres, it’s not all over yet Kimi.
41	To Nico Rosberg	So Nico, 15 laps to go, you’re going to the end on this set, gap to Raikkonen is…
41	From Nico Rosberg	Don’t tell me every lap, just tell me every four laps or something.
46	From Marcus Ericsson	You must be able to tell me if there’s a failure on my dash or not.
46	To Marcus Ericsson	There is no failure, there is no failure, your dash is correct.
47	To Romain Grosjean	Awesome, absolutely awesome
48	To Kimi Raikkonen	OK Kimi just keep pushing, keep pushing. Gap to Rosberg is coming down slightly. It’s not over, remember last year.
57	From Nico Rosberg	Yeah! Awesome, guys! Yeah!
57	To Nico Rosberg	Great job, Nico, great job.
VL	To Kimi Raikkonen	Okay great job Kimi, great job, good recovery from a difficult first lap. Good job.
VL	To Kimi Raikkonen	Well done Kimi, great great job, well done.
VL	From Kimi Raikkonen	Yea thanks, I got a pretty poor start, I think my finger slipped a little bit. It was really odd what happened. But good race and good tyre choices so thanks.
VL	To Kimi Raikkonen	Copy Kimi, great job.
VL	To Lewis Hamilton	Great effort Lewis, great effort. Awesome recovery considering the amount of damage you had, mate.
VL	To Daniel Ricciardo	Okay mate that’s it, nice job, good effort.
VL	From Daniel Ricciardo	Okay understood, cheers guys.
VL	To Max Verstappen	Okay Max, good job, solid drive.
VL	From Max Verstappen	Yeah thank you guys. This was a good race I think. Also I think with the strategy this was the best we could do so yeah, good job. Think it was a really good result.
VL	To Daniil Kvyat	Well done Dani, good effort mate. P7, that was a nice fight, mate.
VL	From Daniil Kvyat	That was a good fun, cheers guys.
VL	To Daniil Kvyat	Great recovery Dani, good deg, great race, good moves. A few points out of that, well done.
VL	From Daniil Kvyat	Thanks Christian, thanks very much.
VL	From Felipe Massa	Yeah okay so, very disappointing race to be honest. The balance was really, really bad on this tyre so couldn’t get a grip on anything, so very disappointing.
VL	To Valtteri Bottas	Okay Valtterri, P9. That was a great recovery drive there. Really good effort.
VL	From Valtteri Bottas	Copy that, very disappointing day but let’s try again in two weeks.
VL	To Valtteri Bottas	Copy, but you really did make the most of it, got those valuable points. Think there’s a lot of positives as well.
VL	To Stoffel Vandoorne	Well done, P10, great job today and yesterday. It’s been a steep learning curve and you’ve done really well.
VL	From Stoffel Vandoorne	Yeah, good job. Been a good weekend from the beginning. I think we more or less made the most of it. Thanks.
VL	To Kevin Magnussen	Okay Kev, P11. Box this lap, that’s P11.
VL	From Kevin Magnussen	Okay good job guys, That was a good strategy and good car all weekend. Sorry about the penalty, this cost us points I think.
VL	To Romain Grosjean	P5 Romain, P5. Amazing job!
VL	From Romain Grosjean	Unbelieavable guys! This is the American dream. This is unbelievable. What a great job from all of you. Some places we can improve but what a job guys! I love you. Beautiful.
VL	To Romain Grosjean	Amazing drive, Romain, amazing. American dream, you said it. Think you got enough passes in there. Brilliant job all race, amazing.
VL	From Romain Grosjean	Yeah I love that car, I love that car.
VL	To Romain Grosjean	Romain, your overtaking was fantastic, thank you very much, we enjoyed that.
VL	From Romain Grosjean	Yeah well I’ve got brakes this year , that helps!
VL	To Romain Grosjean	Nice one.

Lap: Refers to lap message was broadcast on. There may be a delay between messages being said and being broadcast. PR = pre-race; FL = formation lap; VL = victory lap.
Message: Repetitive or irrelevant messages omitted. Notes in italics. Highlights in bold.

Follow F1 Fanatic Live on Twitter for team radio highlights during all live F1 sessions.

Bahrain Grand Prix data

2016 Bahrain Grand Prix

Browse all 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix articles

Team radio transcripts

Browse all team radio transcripts

18 comments on “2016 Bahrain Grand Prix team radio transcript”

Elcinqo
6th April 2016, 1:43
10 From Max Verstappen Yes.
Some context would be nice.
1. Carlos S.
  6th April 2016, 15:52
  The opposite of last years “No!”
  1. peter
    7th April 2016, 11:28
    LOL :)
lockup (@)
6th April 2016, 12:47
I missed the radio. It made the race less interesting for me, with less insight into what was going on. Maybe the drivers were doing more for themselves, but we didn’t know about it so the ban didn’t add anything to the spectacle.
I was quite happy hearing the engineers competing alongside their drivers, it brought out the team side of the sport.
1. Paul Schofield (@tvr350)
  6th April 2016, 12:54
  Know what you mean, I’d no problem with factual messages, but it had got ridiculous when the engineer was telling the driver how to drive. You know what I mean “you’re losing 2 tenths in corner 2” “lift and coast at corner 6”, “Joe Bloggs has a wider line in corner 12” etc.
  1. lockup (@)
    6th April 2016, 13:11
    Yeah @tvr350 but what that radio did do was tell us that the other driver was making time in Corner 2, saving fuel in Corner 6 and using a wider line in 12. We don’t know about that now.
    And after all the drivers still use each other’s telemetry in the garage, with their engineers. It’s true it was absurd sometimes, like back when Smedders was telling Felipe to basically stop doing fast in/slow out, but absurd was interesting, not ‘wrong’ and to be outlawed.
    And now if someone analysed the differences between teammates’ laptimes would they actually be bigger? I doubt it.
  2. Park
    6th April 2016, 14:41
    Those stuff have been banned since Singapore 2014. The real problem is the new ban, or simply FOM is stupid and decides not to broadcast team radio.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
6th April 2016, 12:50
They were having a discussion about this during practice on Sky & I have to say that I agree with David Croft in that I really, Really miss hearing the amount of team radio & some of the messages that we used to get.
I always liked the extra bits of insight that it used to give us & used to like hearing them discuss things like handling & setup through practice/qualifying & likewise used to enjoy hearing all the good bits of detail we would hear during the race.
I get why the restrictions were introduced but I think they have gone too far because were now hearing practically nothing & what we do hear doesn’t really add that much or give much of an added insight. Meanwhile in things like Indycar & Formula E which I also watched over the weekend we got to hear a lot of team radio which gave an added bit of detail & insight that is now missing from F1 sadly.
I’m not necessarily against restricting or banning some elements of communication when it comes to telling the driver how to drive, But I really think they have got way too far with the restrictions that we now have.
IJW (@)
6th April 2016, 12:57
Isn’t this message suppose to be “illegal” now? Aren’t the drivers now no longer allowed to know what tyres other drivers are on?
41 To Kimi Raikkonen Rosberg is also on option tyres, it’s not all over yet Kimi.
jesusyoon (@jesusyoon)
6th April 2016, 13:29
“Tyre specification of a competitor” is allowed one.
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analysis-the-full-scope-of-f1-s-2016-radio-ban-677934/
1. IJW (@)
  6th April 2016, 15:55
  Thanks for that reminder.
Park
6th April 2016, 14:45
Very disappointed about the amount of team radio!
Greg Kingston (@gregkingston)
6th April 2016, 15:13
F1 continues to come up with a remarkably diverse number of ways to lessen the enjoyment of the fans!
ILuvSoundtracks (@)
6th April 2016, 15:33
“[Censored by FOM]. Agh!”
Not the first time Jenson Button swore. Previously, which I remember: https://www.racefans.net/2013/08/02/2013-hungarian-grand-prix-team-radio-transcript/#25
cdavman (@cdavman)
6th April 2016, 18:50
I noticed a distinct lack of radio messages during the race but didn’t realise the list was quite this short!
Half the interest in a race was listening to the strategy switches over the radio, and the occasional outburst from a disgruntled driver. Heck, even the now banned driving advice discussions were quite interesting and informative (though I do understand why they were banned).
This race we got practically nothing, and what we did get didn’t really add to understanding how the race was unfolding.
I’m just hoping that the FOM guy in charge of what radio messages are broadcast had the squits or something and had to keep leaving his post during the race, and that maybe next race he’ll be feeling better and we’ll get more messages.
Selbbin (@selbbin)
7th April 2016, 0:13
Teams could make coded messages to transmit valuable info using nothing but foul language so that all we and other teams will see is [Censored by FOM]
Iosif (@afonic)
7th April 2016, 17:30
@keithcollantine last year, instead of to/from a driver, we could actually see who the driver was talking to. Sure, in most cases it’s just his engineer, but this feature feels more complete that way.
Tommy (@tommy260z)
7th April 2016, 22:35
It would be nice if FOM didn’t censor the driver messages so we could get more of the real show.