STRATEGY GUIDE: What are the possible race strategies for the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix?

And we’re off! We have our first grid of the year, and know who’s quick over one lap – but who’s got the legs for the long run, and what’s the fastest way to the flag under the lights at the Bahrain International Circuit?

What happened at this race last year?

As is the case this year, Pirelli arrived in Bahrain last time out with the C1, C2 and C3 compounds. Two-stop strategies dominated, with the top eight finishers all pitting twice.

Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon finished ninth and tenth respectively, on three-stoppers. The race didn’t feature a Safety Car but there was a short Virtual Safety Car on Lap 40. As the front runners had already made their second stops, this didn’t unduly impact their strategy, though further back it did encourage midfielders – Gasly and Albon included – into making a third stop.

Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez got Red Bull Racing off to the best possible start in 2023 with a 1-2 finish, with both starting with two stints on the soft tyres, followed by a final stint on the hards. Verstappen made his stops on Laps 14 and 36 of the 57-lap race. Perez stopped on Laps 17 and 34.

The following group, led by Fernando Alonso, went the other way, with soft>hard>hard strategies but broadly similar stint lengths. Red Bull didn’t have that option, having carried only the mandatory single sets of hard and medium tyres into the race. Everyone else (except Williams) had two sets of new hards.

With the exception of Kevin Magnussen (hard) everyone began the race on a soft tyre. It was a race for the hard and soft compounds, with only Lando Norris (on a testing run in a crippled McLaren) using a medium tyre for one of his six stints.

So what’s the quickest strategy this time?

Friday practice can tell you what teams are thinking – sometimes by observing what they don’t do. In the case of Thursday’s practice sessions in Bahrain, the most telling observation was the complete absence of hard tyres.

Conversely, everyone burned through two sets of mediums, leaving them just the mandatory single set for the race (and Williams used even that). On Friday, Ferrari and Alpine elected to use their mandatory medium at the start of qualifying for a sighter run.

This was a clear indication teams are expecting 2024 to be a similar race to 2023, with the C2 likely left in the rack. The issue with the yellow-banded medium tyre is that has performance very close to the hard compound but higher degradation – and this isn’t a circuit where higher deg is something teams can comfortably endure.

It’s also worth noting that Red Bull Racing are different to the rest of the field. They followed the consensus on Thursday but decided to burn a hard set in FP3, opting for the extra set of qualifying softs, rather than the security of a second hard set for the race. This mirrors last year’s Grand Prix, when they also were an outlier with only a single set of C1s.

The gap between hard and soft is over a second per lap, so starting on a hard tyre is an invitation to lose ground in the early running. Most likely, teams will run a two-stop strategy starting on a soft tyre for its good getaway potential, then pitting between Laps 13 and 19 for a hard tyre and a long middle stint, followed by a final soft stint, starting somewhere between Laps 37-43.

How about a different option for the top 10?

F1’s technical regs haven’t been rewritten this year, and Pirelli have decided to stick with their 2023 compounds and constructions. Despite a vast amount of work refining their cars to be kinder to the tyres, the basic performance characteristics of last year are still evident.

The nine teams that have kept both new sets of hard tyres have done so because they think two hard stints might be the quickest way to the flag.

A soft>hard>hard race would shorten the early soft stint, with the first stop coming after 11-16 laps, to be followed by two hard stints of equal length – putting the second pit-stop somewhere between Laps 33-39. The benefit is a strategy of this nature doesn’t require prior commitment.

After testing, teams have a good idea how far and how hard they can push the soft tyre. Likewise, over the middle stint on a hard, they will be able to form a firm opinion on how deep into the race they can go. Teams with thermal degradation under control can go long; those that struggle will have opportunities to ditch the more aggressive strategy, and bring their car home on the low-deg hard tyre.

What are the options for the bottom half of the field?

It’s certainly nice to be near the front of the grid but the lifeline for cars at the back is that Bahrain has a strong race bias, and starting position isn’t anything like as important as race pace. So will anyone risk a one-stopper? The medium>hard strategy looks the most likely for one-stop, requiring a driver to get as near as possible to half-distance on the medium before pitting for hards.

But the three stopper is a better bet. It has an almost identical total race time to the two-stopper. That suggests the two-stop as the more mainstream choice (less chance of pit lane mishaps, less chance of being caught-out by Safety Cars) – but for anyone needing to try something different, the three-stop offers a good pace delta on a track with plenty of overtaking potential.

The optimum approach to a three stop is the soft>hard>soft>soft strategy, with the three soft stints covering around 10 laps each, and the hard stint going to 17 or 18 laps – thus making for stops around Laps 10, 28, 38 and 48.

No-one in qualifying looked hugely out-of-position, but for anyone confident their long-run pace is rather better than their single lap performance, there are plenty of opportunities to make up ground.

Wait, but what’s the weather doing?

Well, not much! The Bahrain International Circuit’s decision to fill their drains with concrete earlier this week is a good indication that we’re not going to get anything particularly inclement on race day, but a small wrinkle is that the forecast is 4-5°C cooler than we usually see for this sunset race.

In real terms, that may have pushed teams to take off a little bit of downforce for higher straight-line speeds, less concerned than usual about hitting the thermal limits of their rear tyres.

Wind speed rather than temperature tends to be the dominant meteorological factor in Bahrain, with a strong, gusting Northwesterly causing a lot of rear-end snaps and spiking tyre temperatures – but while the wind has been problematic at the test and in the early part of this weekend, it’s calming down for the race.

That won’t stop the Bahrain International Circuit being a high-degradation track – but it may make it a little more manageable.