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| 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix | |||||
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Race 1 of 19 in the2010 Formula One World Championship
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| Race details | |||||
| Date | 14 March 2010 | ||||
| Official name | 2010 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix | ||||
| Location | Bahrain International Circuit Sakhir,Bahrain | ||||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||||
| Course length | 6.299[1] km (3.914 miles) | ||||
| Distance | 49 laps, 308.405 km (191.634 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Sunny | ||||
| Attendance | 100,000 (Weekend)[2] | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | Red Bull-Renault | ||||
| Time | 1:54.101 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |  Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | |||
| Time | 1:58.287 on lap 45(lap record) | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | Ferrari | ||||
| Second | Ferrari | ||||
| Third | McLaren-Mercedes | ||||
Lap leaders | |||||
The2010 Bahrain Grand Prix (formally the2010 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix)[3] was aFormula One motor race held on 14 March 2010 at theBahrain International Circuit,Sakhir,Bahrain. It was the seventhBahrain Grand Prix and the opening round of the2010 Formula One season. It was the first time since2006 that Bahrain had hosted the opening round and the race took place on a lengthened layout of the track.[1]
The race was won byFernando Alonso, his first as aFerrari driver and his first F1 victory overall since the2008 Japanese Grand Prix.[4] His new teammate,Felipe Massa ensured a good start to the year for the team by finishing second.McLaren driverLewis Hamilton completed the podium by finishing in third position.
All of the race had been led by polesitter andRed Bull driverSebastian Vettel, until lap 34 when a power issue forced him to concede the lead to Alonso. This meant that he was eventually overtaken by Massa and Hamilton too, meaning that he finished in fourth place. Vettel's teammate,Mark Webber qualified sixth before finishing the race in eighth place.Michael Schumacher's first race of his return to Formula One for theMercedes team resulted in him finishing sixth, one place behind teammateNico Rosberg. Reigning world championJenson Button completed his first race for theMcLaren team by finishing seventh. It was also the Grand Prix debut ofNico Hülkenberg, who finished fourteenth for his teamWilliams.
The three new teams—Lotus,Hispania andVirgin—did not have a very successful debut race. Their six cars occupied the last six places in qualifying, and only one, the Lotus ofHeikki Kovalainen, finished the race, althoughJarno Trulli's Lotus was also classified in last place. As a consequence of the race,Fernando Alonso andFerrari led their respective championships with maximum points. The race was also the first since the1993 Australian Grand Prix not to feature refuelling during in-race pit stops, the first Grand Prix weekend since the1997 Australian Grand Prix to have 24 initial entries and the first Grand Prix to have more than 22 starting drivers since the1995 Japanese Grand Prix. The extended 'Endurance Layout' of the Bahrain International Circuit proved unpopular with drivers and teams and as of2025 has never been used by the series again.
The race saw the debut of three new teams:Hispania,Virgin and the new Malaysian-ownedLotus (not a direct descendant toTeam Lotus, even though it is part owned by the same company which at present ownsLotus Cars), as well as the return ofMercedes after Daimler AG's take over ofBrawn GP after the end of the2009 season, and ofSauber, having competed as BMW the previous year. New driversNico Hülkenberg,Karun Chandhok,Bruno Senna,Lucas di Grassi andVitaly Petrov also take part in their maiden races. Hülkenberg joinedWilliams, Petrov joinedRenault and di Grassi became part of the Virgin team, while Hispania had an all-rookie line-up of Senna and Chandhok. Petrov became Russia's first ever Formula One World Championship driver; Chandhok became India's second followingNarain Karthikeyan; Senna is a nephew of the legendary three-time Formula One world championAyrton Senna.
2009 World Drivers' ChampionJenson Button made his debut forMcLaren after changing teams from 2009 Constructors' Champion team Brawn in November 2009. Seven-time World ChampionMichael Schumacher made his return toFormula One with Mercedes,Felipe Massa returned forFerrari after his head injury at the2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, andTimo Glock returned with the Virgin team following his accident at the2009 Japanese Grand Prix.
All the previous winners of the event were present:Jenson Button won the2009 Bahrain Grand Prix, with the Ferrari pair ofFernando Alonso andFelipe Massa both being two-time winners at this circuit. Schumacher won the first event in 2004.
The race also saw a return to the banning of refueling of the cars during the race, a practice which had been allowed since the1994 Formula One season. Additionally a newpoints scoring system to decide the World Drivers' Championship was implemented, the most radical revamp of the system since the formation of the World Championship in1950. The 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system used from2003 to2009 was replaced by a new system which awards points to the top ten finishers on a 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 basis.
At 24 drivers and cars, this was the first time more than 22 cars had started Grand Prix since the1995 Japanese Grand Prix (which also had 24 starters) and the largest event entry list since the1997 Australian Grand Prix weekend where 24 cars were entered (but only 21 cars started that race).
The race was also the first to feature a revised stewards' panel under new FIA regulations, featuring a former Formula One driver. The driver in Bahrain was four-time World ChampionAlain Prost.[5]
Adrian Sutil set the fastest time for theForce India team in the first session of free practice on Friday morning.Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) was second, ahead ofRobert Kubica (Renault),Felipe Massa in the other Ferrari, and the twoMcLaren drivers,Jenson Button andLewis Hamilton. On his return to Formula One,Michael Schumacher set the tenth-fastest time forMercedes, two positions behind teammateNico Rosberg. Of the new teams, bothLotus drivers andTimo Glock set times, butLucas di Grassi did not complete a full lap in the secondVirgin car. TheHispania team was still completing its two chassis when the session started, butBruno Senna was able to complete two installation laps before it ended.[6]
In session 2 of free practice,Nico Rosberg set the fastest time, with Hamilton in second and Schumacher came third. Senna was struggling to match the pace of the fastestGP2 Asia Series drivers, but eventually did so, four seconds off the pace of the Virgins.[citation needed]
In the Saturday free practice session, Alonso in theFerrari set the fastest time of 1:54.099, 0.269 seconds faster thanNico Rosberg in the Mercedes. Hispania'sKarun Chandhok failed to participate in the practice session due to a hydraulic problem.[7] Elsewhere, the Virgin of Glock lost its left-front wheel in the middle of the session, with the problem being attributed to an under-torqued airgun.[8]
The first qualifying session saw the six drivers from the three new teams eliminated, with Timo Glock – the fastest of the newcomers – 2.7 seconds adrift ofJaime Alguersuari in eighteenth and the only driver from the established teams to be eliminated. Despite a crippling hydraulics problem that saw him unable to take part in any of the free practice sessions, Hispania's Karun Chandhok was able to qualify in 24th and last place with a lap time ten seconds slower than the fastest driver, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.
Reigning World Champion Jenson Button narrowly avoided elimination in the second qualifying period, pushing formerBrawn GP teammateRubens Barrichello out of the top ten and into elimination. Barrichello'sWilliams teammateNico Hülkenberg was also eliminated, as were bothSaubers ofPedro de la Rosa andKamui Kobayashi, the secondToro Rosso ofSébastien Buemi,Force India'sVitantonio Liuzzi and rookie driverVitaly Petrov in theRenault.
Red Bull'sSebastian Vettel took pole late in the third session, edging out the Ferraris of Massa and Alonso, with2008 World Champion Lewis Hamilton in fourth. Mercedes's Nico Rosberg and seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher were fifth and seventh respectively, with Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull teammateMark Webber splitting them. Jenson Button could only manage eighth place, while ninth and tenth were taken byRobert Kubica and Adrian Sutil in the remaining Renault and Force India.[9]
The first corner of the first lap saw Mark Webber's engine release copious amounts of oil smoke, triggering a sequence of events that saw Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica spin around and fall to the back of the field. The first lap was otherwise clean, withSebastian Vettel quickly converting his pole position into the race lead.Fernando Alonso got past teammateFelipe Massa, to get second, and both Mercedes drivers also gained a place, withNico Rosberg fourth ahead ofLewis Hamilton, andMichael Schumacher beatingMark Webber to sixth spot. There was little position-changing otherwise, withVitaly Petrov in the second Renault the biggest mover, up to eleventh from seventeenth on the grid.
It was a race of attrition, with the first major incident of the race being the retirement of Hispania's Karun Chandhok, who, after just a handful of laps in qualifying, hit a bump he did not know existed and retired with a damaged front wing. Virgin Racing's Lucas di Grassi joined him on the sidelines shortly thereafter when his Virgin VR-01's hydraulics — a chronic problem throughout the off-season — gave up. Fellow rookie Nico Hülkenberg was lucky to avoid a similar fate to Chandhok when he missed a corner on the run down to turn seventeen and skipped over the circuit. Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi fell victim to hydraulic failure, and was joined a lap later by Petrov who damaged his front-right suspension when he hit a kerb too hard; at the time of his retirement, Petrov had been the highest-placed rookie and had been racing Rubens Barrichello for tenth place and the final championship point on offer. Renault later clarified the issue as being an unanticipated mechanical fault on both cars that was traced back to Petrov's preference for a lower ride height than teammate Kubica who went unscathed. Timo Glock in the second Virgin also retired after losing third and fifth gears, while Bruno Senna's debut for Hispania ended when his engine overheated at the end of the main straight. The six drivers retired during the first seventeen laps. At the front, Vettel and the two Ferraris quickly pulled out a sizeable gap to the rest of the field.
The first round of pit stops also proved to be the only round of stops, with Vettel stretching out enough of a lead to prevent the Ferraris from leap-frogging them. Elsewhere, good work from the McLaren crew allowed both their drivers to gain a place in the stops; Hamilton on Rosberg, andJenson Button on Webber. The list of retirements grew on lap 23 when Pedro de la Rosa in the second BMW Sauber was also struck by a hydraulic issue.
Vettel continued to lead comfortably, two seconds ahead of Alonso and a further three ahead of Massa. However, he began to noticeably slow down during the latter part of the race due to a problem that was later identified within the team as a problem with a spark plug, and was quickly passed by the two Ferraris and Hamilton, and spent the rest of the race trying to hold Rosberg at bay. Alonso went on to win the race, joiningJuan Manuel Fangio,Giancarlo Baghetti,Mario Andretti,Nigel Mansell andKimi Räikkönen as the only men to win their first Grand Prix in a Ferrari. Massa finished second on his return to full-time racing after his injury at the2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton completed the podium, while Vettel successfully fended Rosberg off long enough to salvage fourth. Schumacher followed his teammate home for sixth, with Button seventh, Webber eighth, Vitantonio Liuzzi placing ninth and Barrichello claiming the final point on offer. Kubica recovered from his first-corner spin to claim eleventh while Sébastien Buemi and Jarno Trulli also retired; Buemi's Toro Rosso was struck by electrical issues, while Trulli added his name to the growing list of drivers taken down by hydraulics issues. As they each retired having completed 46 laps, they were classified as finishers as they completed ninety percent of the winner's race distance. Heikki Kovalainen finished fifteenth in the second Lotus, meaning that Lotus became the only entrant of the new teams to have a car finish the race.
There was criticism after the race of the "new" Formula One, with it being echoed by Formula One personalities. McLaren team bossMartin Whitmarsh stated that the F1 community had to "work together to improve it."[10] Former driver andBBC punditDavid Coulthard said that two pitstops could be made mandatory as it "would also mean more potential for mistakes (and, by extension, spectator interest) in the pits." Coulthard was critical also of changes made by formerFIA presidentMax Mosley, as the changes were made during his time in charge.[11]
One person to disagree with the criticism, though, wasAlain Prost, who said that "after a few races, I am sure the good drivers, the top drivers, will like it [the new format]."[12]
The new section of the circuit used by Formula One for the first time also drew criticism from both drivers and fans alike, with most claiming the added corners offered little in the way of passing opportunities. For the next Bahrain Grand Prix in2012, Formula One would revert to using the original Grand Prix Circuit.
Notes:
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| Previous race: 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 2010 season | Next race: 2010 Australian Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix | Bahrain Grand Prix | Next race: 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix |
