F1 Bahrain Grand Prix set for 6pm start time

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2021 will start at 6 pm in the evening, local time.

This was announced yesterday by the International Automobile Federation (FIA), motorsport’s governing body, which released the session times for each event of this year’s FIA F1 World Championship.

The Kingdom’s night race is set for March 26 to 28 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir, kicking off F1’s record 23-round calendar.

The 6 pm start is one of the latest for the season.

Only Singapore (8 pm, local time) on October 3 and the inaugural race in Saudi Arabia (7 pm, local time) on December 5 are later.

The times of the other sessions in the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend are as follows: Practice One on March 26 will be from 2.30pm to 3.30 pm, followed by Practice Two from 6 pm to 7 pm; Practice Three will be on March 27 from 3pm to 4pm followed by Qualifying between 6 pm and 7 pm.

This year’s Bahrain Grand Prix will take place along BIC’s 5.412-kilometre Grand Prix track.

It will be the 17th running of the Kingdom’s showcase sporting event and it is being held only a few months after Bahrain hosted its first-ever F1 double-header last year with the Bahrain Grand Prix followed by the Sakhir Grand Prix.

It will also be the third time that the F1 season will be starting in Bahrain.

BIC previously held the championship opener in 2006 and 2010. Aside from the Grand Prix weekend, Bahrain will also host F1 action from March 12 to 14 with top flight’s three-day pre-season tests.

BIC has replaced Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as the venue for testing, which will be the lone chance for F1’s teams to put their cars through their paces ahead of the start of the new campaign.

The sessions will be the first pre-season tests in Bahrain since 2014, when BIC held two four-day tests.

The Sakhir track had also hosted F1 in-season testing in 2017 and 2019.

In addition to F1, BIC is also set to host the pre-season tests of the FIA Formula 2 Championship from March 9 to 11.

That will be part of F2’s preparations for its 2021 season, which will begin in the Kingdom supporting the Bahrain Grand Prix.