The Bahrain Grand Prix 2017 was the 3rd round of the 2017 F1 season, and took place at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, on April 16th.
Sebastian Vettel won the race after starting in the 3rd position, followed by Lewis Hamilton, and Valtteri Bottas, who originally had the pole position, completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 31 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 10-13: 16 stops
- Laps 36-37: 7 stops
The fastest pit stop was Felipe Massa's, stopping the clock at 24.240 seconds during his pit stop on lap 37, while the slowest one was was Lewis Hamilton's, who stopped the clock at 30.687 seconds, 6.447 seconds slower than Massa, during his pit stop on lap 13.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 2 stops. Only Lance Stroll, Max Verstappen, Pascal Wehrlein, Carlos Sainz and Marcus Ericsson decided to try something different with a 1 stop strategy.
The race winner, Sebastian Vettel, was on a 2 stops strategy.
1 stop
-
5Lance Stroll
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12Max Verstappen
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2Pascal Wehrlein
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-Carlos Sainz
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4Marcus Ericsson
2 stops
-
2Sebastian Vettel
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4Esteban Ocon
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1Kimi Räikkönen
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1Romain Grosjean
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2Valtteri Bottas
-
-Lewis Hamilton
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1Daniel Ricciardo
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2Felipe Massa
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2Nico Hülkenberg
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11Sergio Pérez
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3Jolyon Palmer
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1Fernando Alonso
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1Daniil Kvyat
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 2 positions on average, while those on a 2 stops strategy lost an average of 1 positions.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 2 stops strategy as the optimal for this race.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Bahrain International Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
The reace did not end without incidents... 7 drivers out of the original 20 who started did not managed to cross the finish line.
These included, Fernando Alonso, and Stoffel Vandoorne, both had a power unit failure, Marcus Ericsson, who experienced issues with the gearbox on lap 50, Carlos Sainz, and Lance Stroll, both retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars, Max Verstappen, who saw the breaks of the car give up on lap 11, and Kevin Magnussen, who suffered from electrical problems on lap 8.
Power Unit
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Fernando AlonsoLap 54
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Stoffel VandoorneLap 0
Gearbox
-
Marcus EricssonLap 50
Collision
-
Carlos SainzLap 12
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Lance StrollLap 12
Brakes
-
Max VerstappenLap 11
Electrical
-
Kevin MagnussenLap 8
Qualifying
Valtteri Bottas managed to get the pole position by 0.023 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:28.769. Lewis Hamilton was right behind him, helping Mercedes score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and all of the drivers that took place in Q2 improved their times in this second session.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that 9 out of the 10 drivers that took place in Q3 were able to improve their times.