Ferrari Head of Race Strategy explains challenges tackled in Sakhir. Ferrari Head of Race Strategy explains challenges tackled in Sakhir.

The second consecutive weekend at the Bahrain International Circuit did not go at all well for Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow, with no points scored and it now looks highly unlikely that the team can finish any higher than sixth in the Constructors’ classification. As usual we asked Iñaki Rueda, Head of Race Strategy, to explain our approach to the weekend and how it went, with particular reference to strategy.

“Going into the event, we were keen to find out what the new track was like and how it would suit our car. One of the main question marks related to tyre behaviour: on a track almost half the length of the previous weekend’s, would they suffer 50% less? The situation was more complicated because the tyres’ energy cycle is very different from one track to the next. The Outer Track, while being much shorter, allowed the tyres more time to ‘breathe’ and so they suffered less from overheating. That meant much lower degradation per kilometre than the previous weekend, which added to less degradation from the shorter lap, led to less stops in the race.”

Apart from tyre behaviour, what were the other unknowns?

“With a layout reminiscent of an American oval, we wondered whether we’d be in for an overtaking festival but that was not the case, overtaking was easier than the previous weekend but not to a point to make the race a farce. The short lap presented additional challenges related to traffic management and impeding but surprisingly, there were no yellow flags and no cases of impeding through Qualifying. Even in Q1, with 20 cars on track together, everything went smoothly because the drivers were being respectful and letting others drivers by when they were not in their push laps”.

We saw several different approaches to qualifying. How did we tackle it from the pitwall?

“Such a short lap meant that more than the usual two runs were possible per session, which made the qualifying definitely busier and more exciting. With limited degradation, starting the race on Mediums was desired but less appealing than the previous weekend. That’s why although we tried to make the cut out of Q2 on this compound, we were also ready to fit Softs for a final back-up run. Charles put in a great lap on the Mediums and we thought we had a small chance of going through with it, which is why we sent him out again at the end, ready to abort the lap if he still was in the top 10 when the other completed their laps. In the end, Charles had to complete his lap on Softs to get into the top ten, while Sebastian didn’t make the cut.”