Bahrain Grand Prix: Friday Practice Recap

Event: Free Practice 1 & 2 for the Bahrain Grand Prix – Friday November 27
Location: Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir
Layout: 5.412-kilometer (3.363-mile), 15-turn track
FP1 & FP2 Weather: Mostly Cloudy (FP1) / Clear (FP2)
Drivers: Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen 

Free Practice No. 1 Rundown

Grosjean: 14th overall (1:30.832) 28 laps completed
Magnussen: 15th overall (1:30.854), 29 laps completed
Fastest Driver: Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes (1:29.033)
Most Laps: Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes (41 laps)

Free Practice No. 2 Rundown

Magnussen: 16th overall (1:30.849), 27 laps completed
Grosjean: 19th overall (1:31.119), 28 laps completed
Fastest Driver: Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes (1:28.971)
Most Laps: Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri (36 laps)

Recap

The 15th round of the 2020 FIA Formula 1 World Championship began with practice on Friday at Bahrain International Circuit as teams prepared for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

Two 90-minute sessions – FP1 and FP2 – on the 5.412-kilometer (3.363-mile), 15-turn circuit made up Friday’s agenda. FP1 held the threat of rain following earlier showers in the day but conditions remained dry for the afternoon session. FP2’s evening track action, hosted under the floodlights, proved a more representative session for the grid ahead of qualifying and the race, with conditions mostly clear overhead.

Grosjean and Magnussen started their opening runs in FP1 on Pirelli’s 2021-specification C3 test tires – each team receiving two sets to utilize per car across FP1 and FP2. They followed this up with a run on a new set of the Pirelli P Zero Red softs, then a baseline on the Yellow mediums before finishing off on a high-fuel stint. Grosjean set his fastest lap of the session on the softs – the Frenchman banking a 1:30.832 to place 14th. Magnussen finished one place behind his teammate on the timesheet in 15th – courtesy of a 1:30.854 set on the medium compound.

FP2 commenced with Grosjean and Magnussen sampling their second set of the 2021 C3 test tires on an eight-lap wake-up run before switching over to this year’s medium rubber for another baseline outing. Neither driver set a flying lap on the soft tires – their qualifying simulation window interrupted by two red flag stops – one for a crash by Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon, the second for a stray dog on the circuit. Magnussen finished the session 16th – the Dane setting a best lap of 1:30.849. Grosjean’s fastest tour of 1:31.119 placed him 19th overall.

Haas F1 Team ran a total of 112 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 – 56 each by Grosjean and Magnussen.

Romain Grosjean, Driver No. 8, Haas F1 Team

“I was a bit surprised this morning when I woke up and saw the rain. The positive is the track wasn’t too hot in FP1 and therefore we could work a bit closer to what the race will be like. This track is cool though. It’s tough on tires, there’s quite a bit of degradation – you really have to manage them. It also produces some good racing. This track is one of the easiest of the year to overtake at, so on that aspect it’s always cool racing. We’ve really been working on getting the car set up for the race.”

Kevin Magnussen, Driver No. 20, Haas F1 Team

“It wasn’t quite wet to start the day, but it was raining – certainly a little bit unusual around here. Let’s see if we get some wet weather, that would be interesting, but I don’t think there’s a good chance of it happening. Because we’ve been here many times, we’re maybe not experimenting as much as we have been on some of the other recent tracks because they were new. We’ve focused a little more on the balance of the car and general set-up work. There’s maybe a little less grip than last year but overall, I think things have been more-or-less as we expected coming here.” 

 

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team

“It wasn’t a bad day for us – we did most of our runs and tested the new prototype tires to see what’s coming next year. We got a little bit of feeling on that one. In FP2, well the red flags came out and we didn’t get to do anything on the soft tires – we couldn’t get a good lap in. Every weekend is more or less the same now. Like always, we’re just trying to get the best out of what we’ve got. We’ll try to get at least one car into Q2 tomorrow.”