2025 F1 season

There are four different cars in the top four places but can any of them take the fight to McLaren? Here’s your race strategy dashboard for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Weather

There are no surprises in the weather forecast for Sunday. It will be another blazing hot day, though track temperatures will be cooling by the time the grand prix starts.

The Bahrain Grand Prix is taking place later in the season than it has for several years. The 2018 race was held on April 8th, five days earlier, and on the hotter track the podium finishers were all able to make their tyres last long enough to finish the race with a single pit stop each, aided by a two-lap Safety Car period early on.

It’s by no means certain they will do the same this year. But as overtaking has become more difficult with the current generation of cars, it will be a goal.

Start

The run to turn one at the Bahrain International Circuit is slightly longer than at the previous three venues and the first corner is much tighter. That creates a higher opportunity for the drivers immediately behind the pole winner to attack them at the start.

Distance from pole position to first braking zone. Source: Mercedes

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Charles Leclerc will start from second on the grid this year, as he did in 2024. On that occasion Max Verstappen gave a textbook demonstration of how to keep the lead from pole position:

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Strategy

Last year every driver started the race on the same tyre compound:

Pirelli has not yet issued full details of all drivers’ remaining tyre compounds for the race. However it noted that more than half the field has retained one new set each of the medium and hard tyres, which will give them the best opportunity to complete the race with a single pit stop if it turns out to be possible.

“Everyone’s got very different tyres up and down the grid,” pole winner Oscar Piastri observed after qualifying. “George has only got one hard and one medium. Charles and I have got two mediums. Max has got two hards, so it’s a bit of a mix.”

A pit stop takes around 24 seconds in Bahrain. The aggressive nature of the track surface makes the ‘undercut’ very powerful, so a driver such as Verstappen with two new sets of hards could run an attacking strategy by starting on softs and making two early tyre changes. This was the preferred strategy of most teams last year with the notable exception of the then-dominant Red Bull drivers, who finished first and second on soft-hard-soft strategies.

A full table of drivers’ tyres will be added here once the data is available.

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Overtaking

There have been no changes to the three DRS zones at the Bahrain circuit this year.

Speed trap

The Ferraris are up towards the top of the speed traps, which may make them more inclined to risk a strategy which involves overtaking.

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Safety Cars

There have been few significant Safety Car and Virtual Safety Car appearances in recent races. None occured last year, and the only disruptions in the previous two seasons came after most drivers had made their pit stops. However many drivers did use the opportunity to fit fresh tyres on those occasions.

Grid

The grid for this year’s race is as follows. Any changes between now and the start of the race will be added here:

Over to you

Will Piastri become the first repeat grand prix winner of the season in the Bahrain Grand Prix? What will championship leaders Lando Norris and Max Verstappen salvage from their lower starting positions?

Share your predictions in the comments.

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix

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Charles Leclerc will start the Bahrain Grand Prix from the front row of the grid after both Mercedes drivers were penalised for the same infringement in qualifying.

The stewards ruled Mercedes sent both cars out of their garage before they were permitted to when Q2 restarted following Esteban Ocon’s crash.

George Russell originally qualified second alongside pole-winner Oscar Piastri. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was due to start fourth in the other Mercedes. Both drivers were given one-place grid penalties.

Mercedes committed the infringement after its head of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, misunderstood a message on the timing screen. He said he thought the FIA had issued a definitive restart time, not a provisional one.

“The team representative, Mr Shovlin, in evidence stated that he gave the instruction for the cars to be released, in error, having misinterpreted the message posted on page three of the timing screen, ‘estimated restart time’ to be a message advising the actual restart time,” the stewards noted. “He argued that there was no sporting advantage gained in this case as there was sufficient time remaining (11 minutes) for other teams to perform their run plans.

“It was also noted that the team’s sporting director, Mr Meadows, was not present at the event and that normally he would be involved in the release process.”

The FIA noted that due to the limited amount of time available in qualifying, Mercedes stood to gain an advantage by ensuring their drivers joined the track immediately.

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“The FIA single seater sporting director stated that such a move could be a sporting advantage in that it could enable a team to perform its run plan whereas other teams may not be able to,” the stewards reported. “The stewards agree with this view particularly where there are only a few minutes remaining in the session.”

As a result, the stewards decided to issue a grid drop. They accepted Mercedes’ claim they had made an unintentional error and said in their verdict a similar infringement could result in tougher sanctions in future.

“The FIA sporting director argued that there needed to be a sporting penalty rather than a team fine, otherwise in future teams would release their cars as soon as the estimated restart time was published,” they noted. “The stewards agree with this view.

“Mr Shovlin argued that it was possible to give a non-sporting penalty if the stewards declared that it was not to be taken as a precedent but also stated that if a sporting penalty was to be given, it should be mitigated.

“The stewards agreed with the view that this breach required a sporting penalty however [they] accept that the breach was unintentional and a genuine mistake by the team for which Mr Shovlin apologised. We decide to impose a one position grid penalty. A similar breach in different circumstances, could entail a more severe sporting penalty in future.”

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix

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