© Vladimir RysThe Same Track… But DifferentThe Bahrain and Sakhir Grands Prix represent the third time this year F1 has moved on while staying put – and strange to say it but these races have all been unique.
Back in the Spring, when Formula One’s factories when into an unplanned nine-week shutdown, and the sport’s administrators were scrambling to understand what sort of a season – if any – could be viable, there was an understanding that radical ideas had to be on the table.
The ideas floated on social media were a wild bunch: some based on fact, others were pure fiction; a few were science fiction. Permanent circuits weren’t going to be run in reverse, but it wasn’t entirely beyond the realms of possibility to imagine the entire season contested over two summer months at a single track.
There was an opportunity to try new things – but also, perhaps, an obligation to present something as close to normal as possible. However, what we ended up having was a compromise. Normal length races in their normal Sunday afternoon slot.
The biggest change we've seen this year though has been the double-headers ran at the same track. We’ve had three of them. The Red Bull Ring, Silverstone, and now the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). Each organised in a subtly different way: in fact it’s been downright sneaky how much innovation F1 has packed into the one basic premise of running two races back-to-back on the same circuit.
By now, we should be accustomed to these back-to-back races, but each sequence has been unique. The Red Bull Ring opened the season with identical back-to-back races; then Silverstone changed it up by running a different tyre allocation. Bahrain, however, takes the prize for most different. Not only is it running its two races on a different track layout, it’s also running them at different times of day. It’s really like a whole different race.
Alex On The Hard Tyres In Austria© Getty Images
Doubling-up at the Red Bull Ring raised a lot of interesting questions about how F1 would cope with racing on a known circuit, with a degree of trepidation expressed over the potential for a dull second race in which everyone has their set-up dialled in too well, resulting in a two-by-two, by-the-numbers grand prix.
There were several counter arguments, first of which was, being the first race of the season, and with a substantial upgrade package for most teams over their baseline winter testing car, a single race weekend would not answer all of the questions the teams needed to ask. The alternative opinion (somewhat contradictory to the first) would be that the weight of mileage from the first race would allow teams to be bolder with practice session set-up.
The basic rule of thumb for Friday practice is that the morning session sees teams doing baseline experiments, and then honing race set-up in the afternoon – but there are only so many test items that can be fitted into the programme. There’s a limited number of tyre sets available, limited mileage and only a limited amount of time for the crews to make set-up changes. Even with tests split across the two cars, race engineers have to concentrate on the test items they believe are most likely to represent the biggest gains.
Coming to week two in Austria, faced with exactly the same circuit but (for us) 1360km of data already accrued, would allow the race engineers to do away with the initial work studying downforce and stiffness, and run a wider array of set-up tests than would ever usually be the case.
The jury is still out on this one. Torrential rain on Saturday skewed both the grid and the set-up choices with which teams went into qualifying and thus, into the race. For all the similarity the Red Bull Ring bore to the previous week’s qualifying conditions, the session may has well have been carried out atop the Styrian Alps.
Silverstone/70thAnniversary
Silverstone was always likely to play a major role in the reconfigured 2020 season and long before the calendar was finalised it was pencilled-in to hold races four and five of the shortened season.
Max With His 70th GP Trophy© Vladimir Rys
There had been some speculation around running a different track configuration entirely. But in the end the British Grand Prix and the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix that followed ran on the same track – albeit with a different tyre specification. It was a small change with massive consequences.
Silverstone is a tough venue for tyres. Abrasive asphalt and high-speed corners that pour energy into the rubber make it a severe test, and thus, it’s a circuit at which Pirelli bring their hardest compounds – in the current nomenclature, the C1, C2 and C3. For the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, the allocation stepped down to the C2, C3 and C4.
Under any circumstances, using a C4 tyre at Silverstone going to be a difficult proposition, but on a hot weekend for the English Midlands in August it was going to be particularly problematic.
In a normal season, teams are allowed to choose their mix of tyre compounds for the weekend. The logistic demands of 2020, however, had led to Pirelli instituting a standard 8-3-2 allocation for most of the races: Eight Soft; Three Medium; Two Hard. On most weekends, once six sets have been deleted from the allocation after the practice sessions, this usually means teams arrive at the start of qualifying with their mandatory single set of each compound, plus four new discretionary sets of soft tyres – because the soft compound is the tyre on which they choose to qualify.
The Anniversary Grand Prix was a little different and saw teams burning through their soft tyre stash and discarding them as soon as possible. Unwilling to use a soft tyre in the race, everyone in the top ten qualified out of Q2 on a medium tyre – except Max who put in a mighty lap to qualify on the Hard rubber. This greatly helped him on his way to his first – and so far only – victory of 2020.
Of the three same-track-back-to-back formats used this year, it’s the present double-header that really pushes the boat out, offering not one but two highly significant changes to the format for week two.
The first and most obvious change is to the circuit, with the 3.543km Outer Track replacing the familiar 5.412km Grand Prix Circuit. While most circuits used in F1 have corners that can be reconfigured, BIC is one of only a few venues that have alternative FIA Grade 1 layouts.
Together with the Grand Prix Circuit, it’s also held the Bahrain Grand Prix, in 2010, on the longer Endurance Circuit layout. The Outer Circuit being used this week combines elements of both.
What does that mean for the cars? Firstly, there’s one fewer DRS straight, which will encourage teams to take off downforce, then there are fewer corners, which will encourage teams to take off even more downforce. It’s also going to affect ride-height and suspension stiffness. While three-quarters of the current track are well-understood, the new side of what is essentially a square layout presents an unknown. So the team will have to approach Friday practice as though this was a new venue – albeit a new venue where three quarters of the layout is very well-known.
In The Sakhir Spotlight© Getty Images
The other factor to consider for the Sakhir Grand Prix is that the sessions are being run at a very different time of day. Unlike the Bahrain Grand Prix, which had day/night sessions, and started qualifying and the race shortly after sunset, the entire programme this week is shifted back roughly three hours with Friday and Saturday’s track activity starting under lights, with an 8pm start to qualifying and 8.10pm for the grand prix.
This makes a great deal of difference to the conditions under which the race will be run. As is the case anywhere, track temperatures in Bahrain begin falling mid-afternoon. The temperatures fall faster, however, as evening progresses, perhaps by as much as 12°C, depending on how hot the day was. This has a significant effect on the balance of the car: a cooler track should reduce tyre degradation – but it should also mean the front end of the car gets weaker on a quali lap or at the start of a race stint and more prone to understeer.
It’s not an entirely unknown phenomenon because F1 has tested at BIC late into the evening and knows what to expect – but these are all factors that change the dynamic of the race in comparison to the previous one, ensuring that, while the venue hasn’t changed, the race most certainly will.
