The Official 2014 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix ***SPOILERS***

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix
900th World Championship Grand Prix



Previous Winners
2004 - Michael Schumacher (Ferrari)
2005 - Fernando Alonso (Renault)
2006 - Fernando Alonso (Renault)
2007 - Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2008 - Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2009 - Jenson Button (Brawn GP Mercedes)
2010 - Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
2012 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault)
2013 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2014 05:28PM by EC83.

OK, quali is underway then! This weekend has been more fun to watch so far than the last two race weekends IMO.

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Well... Merc are lightyears ahead.. but at least there's a nice scrap brewing up between Red Bull, Williams, Force India, McLaren and Ferrari behind them.

Lewis looks a bit peeved to have lost this pole to Britney, turn one will be interesting tomorrow, as I doubt they'll be allowed to race each other after a couple of laps.

Good job by Ricciardo, shame about the penalty from last week, Red Bull seem to be throwing points away at the moment as with Seb's very un Seb like failure to proceed through to Q3.

Bottas will be relived to have finally got a clear qualify session (touches wood), in and if he hooks up the kind of start he did at Melbourne and Malaysia he could irritate the mercs for the first stint.

Perez is looking pretty good, as are Force India in general. Shame about Hulks mistake.

Decent job by Kimi in the end to out-qualify Alonso by so much as I don't think he hit a single apex on that lap.

If Sutil doesn't get penalty points on his license for his move on Grosjean, (after Bottas did for his moment with Ricciardo at Malaysia) then I'll be annoyed.

Bad times for Toleman.. to be just scraping it ahead of the Caterham.

Quote
J i m
If Sutil doesn't get penalty points on his license for his move on Grosjean, (after Bottas did for his moment with Ricciardo at Malaysia) then I'll be annoyed.

Indeed. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he simply didn't see him, but I'm struggling to be honest. He went a long, long way off the line to give space to one car. I've not seen a replay, but it looked like they touched, which could so easily have been disastrous. While Sutil has history, it's certainly not what you'd expect from an experienced driver.

It's very, very early in the season, but this could be the most dominant a season we've had since 1992... if you include the expected reliability issues, then maybe even 1988. This is the most dominant we've seen a car for a long, long time.

While I've not seen an interview, Vettel looked very frustrated pulling into his pit-box at the end of Q2 - angry in fact.

alonso -- what da f...?!?!

gav Wrote:
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> It's very, very early in the season, but this
> could be the most dominant a season we've had
> since 1992... if you include the expected
> reliability issues, then maybe even 1988. This is
> the most dominant we've seen a car for a long,
> long time.

My thought so far this season has been 1998 - certainly Melbourne that year. But now you mention it, 1988 is probably a better comparison, as that was the last time a car was this dominant when there was no clear #1 or #2 driver in the team. So far this has got the makings of a quality title battle.

I was slightly annoyed when one of the commentators(Ant or Crofty, can't remember which, or it could've been a Tweet they were reading out) directly compared Nico/Lewis to Senna/Prost during P3. I don't think there's much similarity there at all. If there's any other top driver pairing they remind me of, it's Ralf/JPM at Williams.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2014 08:28AM by EC83.

with alonso 10th and raikkonen an unspectacular 5th for ferrari,i think it is worth discussing their development.

watching ferrrari in the last couple of years has been painful. my opinion is that their signing of raikkonen will improve nothing.

not because he is slow or lazy or whatsoever. but rather, because their problem lies deep within the team organization and approach to car design and -development. and raikkonen is just a good driver, not a political figure who can influence the processes within the team.

i remember garry anderson i think mentioned at the end of last year for bbc, that the team organization i a complete chaos.

what is your opinion on the ferrari situation and their chances of the season ahead/

Ferrari are a bit like McLaren in that respect.. they've still got the top team mindset, but in reality their team structure has been out grown by the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes.

But if you think it's painful watching Ferrari... Try being a Williams fan

Got to say, it's been great to finally have a completely dry weekend as it's enabled us to finally clearly see how the cars perform on a level playing field. Now things make a bit more sense somehow and the big picture is in clearer focus.

Looking forward to the start!

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Great opening stints from Massa and Perez.

RedBull having a MultiSeb moment. :P

Update: Brilliant battle for the lead now too!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2014 05:38PM by EC83.

Cracker of a race at the moment. Nico looks to have the better race strategy out of the two Mercs.

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Wow, Maldonado is on form. :P

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And he's still running with a complete car after summarily obliterating Gutierrez. LOL!

This should be a quality restart.

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C'mon Merc, let them race...

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...Good!

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Awesome, awesome race. At Bahrain!

I think Mercedes let them race after the safety car, but then asked them to bring it home with 3 or 4 to go. You saw Paddy on the radio again and it looked like Nico backed off on the following straight, then closed the DRS a couple of hundred metres from the braking zone on the next. Great to see them letting them race at all frankly - I thought it would have been understandable if they'd asked them to hold position after the safety car (which was a bit unfortunate for Hamilton, though I think Rosberg would have been a lot closer at the end than some were expecting).

Good to see Ricciardo take it to Vettel on the track and hand him his own arse. He's certainly quicker than I expected him to be.

Maldonado... wow. Just wow. If he gets away from that with a 15 second second penalty and nothing more, he's a lucky boy. I expect them to add another couple of points to his license.

Bottas was an idiot when he nearly creamed into Kimi. So close to a disaster.

McLaren and Ferrari are going backwards at quite a rate of knots.

Seems so weird hearing a Geordie on the podium. :\

Wow, that was some racing right there.

Awesome race for sure, best one of the year so far. I like Bahrain at night

I still hate driving around the track on my own, but Sakhir has some good oppprtunities for overtaking, and they seem to have been amplified by drivers struggling more with the cars out of the corners.

Totally rubbish, inexpert analysis over - Murdernado aside, that was awesome!

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GPGSL -
GPGSL-3 - Pizza Party Racing manager and driver
Nations Cup - Team Scotland manager

Was that the best dry race since Japan 05?

I was exhausted when I'd finished writing my report, that's how much was going on.

Brilliant to see the two Merc's going at it. A major downer for Rosberg to lose out for a second consecutive weekend to Hamilton.

Excellent result for Sergio, and Hulkenberg had a great race as well, a shame that he couldn't hold onto fourth though.

Ricciardo plugged away all weekend and got a decent result as well, he's really started the season brightly.

As Gav noted, what's happened to Ferrari and McLaren? They've gone backwards massively.

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions