F1 countdown in home stretch

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The new Formula 1 season flags off in just a few days’ time and Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) is all geared up to celebrate the Kingdom’s 20th anniversary in motorsport’s top flight.

This historic milestone will be highlighted in a race weekend filled with incredible action and entertainment, showcasing “20 Years of a Modern Classic” this Thursday to Saturday at the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024.

With the completion of pre-season testing at the Sakhir facility last week, F1’s superstar drivers and their teams are working double time to best utilise the data they gathered on track and get their 2024 contenders optimally set up for F1 world championship-opener.

This year’s F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix will be following a modified schedule.

Racing is scheduled to begin on Thursday rather than Friday, and then the main event will be held for the first time ever on a Saturday night, making for an additional spectacle to an already extra-special occasion.

Highlighted Thursday’s action will be highlighted by the two F1 practices, to be followed on Friday by a third F1 practice and qualifying.

That will set the stage for the 57-lap grand prix, scheduled to begin at 6pm on Saturday night. Action in the three exciting support series will also be held on all three days.

Formula 2 and Formula 3 will have their practice and qualifying sessions on Thursday and then their sprint races on Friday.

Their feature races will then take place Saturday.

For the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East, two practices take place Thursday and then qualifying follows on Friday along with the weekend’s first race.

Race two will then be held Saturday.

There was plenty of action during F1 pre-season testing and fans were able to get a sneak preview of what’s to come this season when they watched the tests from BIC’s Main Grandstand.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz posted the fastest time of all three days during the second day of running.

He had a best lap of one minute 29.291 seconds, the only time in testing to dip below the minute-and-a-half mark.

Teammate Charles Leclerc had the second-best of the tests with the final day’s quickest lap, while behind them in the top five were Mercedes star George Russell, Kick Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu, and Sergio Perez of reigning constructors’ world champions Red Bull.

Three-time defending drivers’ world champion Max Verstappen was sixth-best after all three days. Haas had racked up the highest number of laps in the tests with 441, equivalent to over 2,386 kilometres.

Ferrari followed with 416 laps and Red Bull had 391 laps. Kevin Magnussen had a big part in those runs, completing 239 of Haas’ total lap count.

Sainz followed with 224, while RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was third-busiest with 210 laps.