4 April in Ferrari history: victory in the first Bahrain Grand Prix
April 4 in Ferrari Formula 1 history
Explore Ferrari Grand Prix results, qualifying and Sprint sessions, driver birthdays, remembrance dates and selected milestones connected with this day.
Ferrari Grands Prix held on April 4
Race, qualifying, Sprint and Ferrari driver biographical dates are generated from the locally processed F1DB dataset. Session anniversaries are shown only when an explicit session date is available in the source. Selected non-race Ferrari milestones are curated separately from Ferrari sources. Historical shared-car result rows are preserved without inventing additional Grand Prix starts.
On 4 April 2004, Ferrari won the first Bahrain Grand Prix. Michael Schumacher led Rubens Barrichello across the line at Sakhir, giving the Scuderia a one-two finish as Formula 1 staged its first world championship race in the Middle East.
A Ferrari one-two at a new Formula 1 venue
Ferrari arrived at the Bahrain International Circuit with a strong start to the season already behind it. Schumacher had won the opening races in Australia and Malaysia, and the unfamiliar venue offered another test of the F2004’s speed and reliability.
The team answered that challenge by taking both positions on the front row and converting them into first and second in the race. Schumacher completed the 57 laps ahead of Barrichello, while Jenson Button finished third for BAR.
The result made Ferrari the first winning constructor at Bahrain and extended Schumacher’s sequence to three victories from the first three rounds of 2004.
The original Bahrain race was held in daylight
Although Bahrain later became closely associated with floodlit Formula 1 racing, the inaugural event was a daytime Grand Prix. The circuit introduced its night race in 2014, a decade after Ferrari’s first success there.
That distinction gives 4 April a particular place in the calendar: it marks Ferrari’s victory at the beginning of Bahrain’s Formula 1 story.
Explore Michael Schumacher’s Formula 1 records or return to the Ferrari history calendar.
