Pirelli Motorsport‘s Head of Car Racing, Mario Isola, believes the Bahrain Grand Prix will likely be a two-stop race with a mixture of ‘interesting’ strategies to be used.
Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix produced more than a few upsets, with both Williams Martini Racing cars starting towards the back of the grid, Max Verstappen having to start in fifteenth following a crash in the first qualifying segment and reigning champion Lewis Hamilton starting in ninth due to a gearbox penalty.
Isola says this, coupled with the strategies we’ve already started to see teams using, will make it an interesting race.
“After an action-packed qualifying, there will be a few drivers starting out of their usual positions tomorrow, which should make for an entertaining race,” said Isola. “We’ve already seen some interesting strategies in view of the race tomorrow.
“Lewis Hamilton beat last year’s supersoft pole time already in Q2 using the soft tyre, with which he will start the race, against the rest of the top ten on supersoft.”
Commenting on how many pit stops we can expect, Isola says most cars will go for two – though this will be dictated by the races each team is having.
“We can expect two pit stops for most of the cars tomorrow, but there are a number of different potential combinations that could work, depending on the speed of each car and the individual race circumstances,” stated Isola.
