After an opening day of action in Bahrain where Formula 1 drivers were left bemoaning a “shocking” lack of grip due to the extreme temperatures, teams were given some hope on Saturday morning that things may not be as bad going forwards.
Ahead of final free practice, F1 tyre supplier Pirelli notified competitors that, for the remainder of the weekend, it would be lowering the rear tyre temperatures by one psi – from 21psi to 20psi.
The move is quite interesting because it is very rare for Pirelli to elect to drop the pressures on an F1 race weekend – normally, when there is a change, it goes in the other direction.
One of the most notable occasions when an in-weekend lowering of the pressures did happen was the 2016 Italian Grand Prix - after pressures had been raised quite dramatically beforehand on safety grounds to avoid the risk of blow-outs, with evidence from practice then allowing for that raise to be countered.
But while a move like this happened a handful of times across 2016 and 2017, by all accounts it hasn't since - until now.
The move in Bahrain has been prompted by different considerations to that Monza example - and is more about tyre performance and trying to help improve a situation where the rear tyres in particular have been quite difficult to manage.
And on a weekend where managing the rear tyres will be critical to success, it could serve to shake things up.
Ramped up temperatures
A warmer-than-expected Bahrain, which is a world away from the coolness of the pre-season test, left everyone battling excessive rear tyre temperatures and a lack of grip during Friday.
World champion Max Verstappen had said: “No grip. Just difficult, of course.
“Just too slow basically every lap. Honestly not a lot of fun out there on the long runs. Bit of drift practice at the end.”
Williams chief engineer Paul Williams added: “I think from when we were here for testing and now, obviously the biggest difference is the conditions.
“In testing, we were around 20°C track temperature. In FP1, it was up around 50° and it dropped by around 15° into the second session in the evening. And that is the challenge: to try and keep the tyres beneath you.
“From Turn 8 onwards, the rears are struggling. So by Turn 14, it is a challenge.”
The laptimes told their own story about how different things were from the Bahrain test. Oscar Piastri’s benchmark time from Friday practice at Sakhir of 1m30.505s was well adrift of Carlos Sainz’s best effort from the test of 1m29.348s.
Looking at telemetry data of how teams were stacking up on Friday, the difference between McLaren and the rest of the field over a single lap became obvious after Turns 9-10, when it was clearly able to keep its tyres in a better operating window for more of the lap.
Based on that observation, the likelihood is that in the race the margin between the Woking-based squad and the opposition in tyre management will have been even greater as its advantage becomes ever more exaggerated over a stint.
Pressure target
Pirelli's analysis after Friday confirmed that, as a consequence of the extra heat, pressures were higher than anticipated.
A tyre with high pressure can get stuck in a vicious circle where it is more susceptible to sliding and then gets even hotter – which then raises the pressure even more and makes it difficult to manage.
Pirelli thus assessed that its original minimum tyre pressure of 21psi was resulting in its estimated stabilised pressure being higher than the 22psi it was targeting.
So this is what has prompted the reduction from Saturday, in the hope that it can bring the pressures down across the grid and potentially help those teams that were in trouble - and it will especially help over the race run distances.
But while McLaren’s rivals will be hoping that the pressure change allows them a chance to be more competitive against the event favourites, the Woking-based squad was also suffering with things on Friday - which suggests that it too may gain performance from the tweaks.
Speaking after Friday practice about his run, Lando Norris said: “[It was] shocking.
“I think it was for everyone today, to be honest. And comparing to the test, the test was a dream. This was horrendous.”
But F1 is a relative business, and just being 'less horrendous' than the others will still be good enough to win.
