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Renault driver Esteban Ocon has tipped the Sakhir Grand Prix held on the Bahrain Outer circuit in December to be “the biggest fight we’ve seen for years in Formula 1”.
The 11-turn, 2.2-mile lap is expected to produce lap times as low as 53s in qualifying, with three straights and only four braking zones and an average lap speed second only to Monza.
F1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn has described this track as an “almost-oval”, but while its demands are very different to that of a genuine oval it will involve a huge amount of flat-out running.
Ocon revealed that he has driven several laps of the circuit in his own personal simulator and believes it will produce a dramatic race.
“I’ve done a few laps on my own sim and, first of all, it’s going to be very quick,” said Ocon.
“For me, the racing is going to awesome. It’s probably going to be the biggest fight we’ve seen for years in Formula 1 with all those straight lines.
“Basically, from the Bahrain track what you keep is all the straightline from it and you have two other corners.
“Most of the cars are going to be slipstreaming, [thinking] strategy and racing until the flag. I think that’s going to be really cool.”
Ocon’s team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo, admitted that the Bahrain outer circuit configuration might be well-suited to the Renault package given it has been its strongest at lower-dowforce circuits this year.
“I had a little look, yeah, it might do,” he said when asked whether the track would suit Renault. “It’s cool that they’re changing the layout for that second race.
“Also as a driver, it’s another challenge for us, some more corners and tricks for us to learn. Always with a new track and something none of us have been on, you try and find little secrets in a corner, if there’s a bump there.
“So that in itself is fun. If it suits us, maybe. Time will tell.”
While the drivers have largely supported the addition of the circuit, which will be used for the second Bahrain race this year with the regular grand prix track running the week before, there are concerns it could be problematic in qualifying.
With such a short lap time, were all 20 cars to be on a run during Q1 it would mean one car every 2.75s around the lap. Given slow cars on preparation laps backing each other up, and the risk of a fast car on a push lap clashing with a slower one, there have even been suggestions action needs to be taken to tackle this before the Bahrain Outer weekend.
Romain Grosjean reckoned that qualifying would be a “nightmare” as a result and suggested rule changes would be required before to minimising the amount of backing up.
But McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl, speaking after the Belgian Grand Prix, suggested that the rules will be more clearly outlined by the time F1 gets to Bahrain.
This followed McLaren complaining to the race director about Ocon coming to a standstill on track while on a preparation lap ahead of Lando Norris during qualifying at Spa.
“I would hope with what we have seen [at Spa] that by then we have a clear definition in place of how everyone has to handle the out-laps and then hopefully that helps to not run into any issue there.
“There was a discussion after qualifying [at Spa] in order to bring up the topic again because what we have seen in qually and also in free practice, especially when cars are offset and you have a mixture of fast and slow laps, it was just dangerous.
“I think we need to do something in order to make sure that we do not wait until something big happens.”
