In Bahrain with prior knowledge

The compounds

In fact, temperature will be a very important variable when it comes to tyre management at the fourth race of the year. As was the case in Suzuka, the teams will have a choice of the three hardest compounds in Pirelli’s 2025 range, namely the C1 as Hard, the C2 as Medium and the C3 as Soft. However, the Sakhir track characteristics and indeed the temperatures, will require a different approach to that adopted last week in Japan.

In fact, all the teams will have a good baseline from which to start work, given that in the last week of February, the Sakhir circuit hosted the only pre-season test as per the 2025 sporting regulations. It means that everyone will have plenty of data to work with when it comes to setting up the cars and choosing the best strategies for qualifying and the race.

Over 24 hours of track time, the 20 drivers racked up 3,897 laps, equivalent to 21,090.564 kilometres and the tyres to be used this weekend did the most work back then: the C3 did the lion’s share, completing 67.17% of the laps, followed by the C2 (20.88%) and the C1 (9.26%). There were a measly 104 laps run on the C4 and three on the Intermediate. However, this weekend’s temperatures will present a new challenge, because during the test week, Sakhir saw unusual weather with strong winds leading to much cooler air and track temperatures than is normal at that time of year.

The minimum start pressures for this weekend have changed based on analysis of the test data, to 23 psi on the front and 21 at the rear. That represents an increase of +1 on the front axle and +2 on the rear compared to the 2024 race and of 0.5 psi on both axles compared to February’s test.