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!”
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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.
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Bahrain Grand Prix data
2016 Bahrain Grand Prix
- Haas mechanic credited for saving Grosjean’s race
- Grosjean takes back-to-back Driver of the Weekend wins
- Another decent race despite qualifying gloom
- 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
Team radio transcripts
- “Plan C?”: Why McLaren only got their strategy right for one driver at Imola
- “We can win with Lewis”: Why Leclerc abandoned his late gamble on soft tyres
- ‘That’s not how I race’: Was Sainz right to feel aggrieved by Albon after Miami GP?
- Leclerc also criticised Ferrari over “stupid” strategy on radio
- “If he passes now that’s illegal”: Unheard radio from Verstappen vs the McLarens
Elcinqo
6th April 2016, 1:43
10 From Max Verstappen Yes.
Some context would be nice.
Carlos S.
6th April 2016, 15:52
The opposite of last years “No!”
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.