Scuderia Ferrari has won six times in Bahrain: the first victory was in the inaugural event in 2004 courtesy of Michael Schumacher, while in 2007 and 2008, Felipe Massa took the wins. The only time the “endurance” layout of the track was used was in 2010, when Fernando Alonso won on his debut with Ferrari, joining an exclusive club of first time winners, Juan Manuel Fangio, Giancarlo Baghetti, Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Kimi Räikkönen. In 2017 and 2018, Ferrari won with Sebastian Vettel and last year saw Charles Leclerc signal his future intentions when, having started from pole and led most of the race, he had to settle for third and his first ever Formula 1 podium, because of a reliabilty problem.
Sebastian Vettel #5
“The
Sakhir circuit has always been very demanding for the drivers and the
cars. From inside the car, the ambient temperature is a feature, because
in this desert location, at some parts of the day the heat can be very
high.
The characteristics of the track put a premium on traction and also provide a stern test for the brakes, which come under a lot of stress over the course of a lap. It’s what we drivers call a stop-go track because you are continually having to brake heavily and then accelerate hard. We never raced in Bahrain this late in the year, but it won’t change very much in terms of the temperatures.
We’ve seen that the car has improved over the past few races and I’m keen to see how competitive we can be at this track.”
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