Bahrain Grand Prix - Track guide - Formula1

 Bahrain Grandprix

F1 Tamizhan


Circuit length : 5.412 km

Laps : 57

Total race length : 308.238

Direction : clockwise 



Main challenge of the track is it's mixed nature of high speed straights and low speed corners.

With exit from low speed corners into straights causes rear tire management a bit difficult can cause to spin. Cars are designated to understeer to compensate this on track. 

Next challenge is slippery portion of track , dust from desert punishes drivers who are abusing track limits. 

Car setup is predominantly medium downforce to help with three long straights.



Sector 1  (turn 1 to 4) 

Lap begins with longest start- finish straight with crucial first corner. 

Turn 1 comes as the hairpin and most important for the lap to set pace and lead.

Entry should be taken care well and also not too much kerb as there is an immediate right hander, turn 3 followed by second straight of the lap. so though first part of the lap decides who leads through the lap but still there are lot of overtaking opportunities.

Now comes the turn 4 , off cambered corner that causes oversteer. more apex here, more problems.


Sector 2 (turn 5 to 12 ) 

This part of the lap demands areo efficiency of the car to keep on the ground through wavering corners. 

Turn 5, 6 ,7 alternate left and  right handers lead to next tighter slow speed corner turn 8. 

 Turn 9 and turn 10 are challenging part of the sector as it involves steering under braking. Positioning the car and exit pretty important to lead through the corner. then comes 3rd DRS zone and sector ends with flat out high speed corners turn 11 and 12.


Sector  3 ( Turn 13  to 15)

 Now comes the last sector starting with tight corner, Turn 13, too much of kerb on exit leads through straight. 

Final sector is rear tire limiting , from sweeping corners to straights ,overheated rear tires make the last tight corners Turn 14, 15 tougher. 

It is easy to loose few tenths by not positioning through these two corners. Lap ends with longest start finish straight. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

F1 Monza GP Track guide - Autodromo Nazionale Monza , Italy

Image
  Autodromo Nazionale Monza , Italy Italy Monza GP - F1 Tamizhan Circuit length : 5.793 km Laps : 53 Total race length : 306.72 Direction : clockwise Monza, the temple of speed. Circuit with the highest average speed and average lap time only around 90seconds in the F1 calendar. It's Ferrari's hometown, and they always try to put some show around. The track is a combination of long straights and chicanes that just don't suit Ferrari's cars right now. Cars are exclusively built for tracks such as Spa and Monza for extremely low drag setups due to a lot of straights. almost 80% of the lap goes on full throttle. Sector 1 The lap starts with the longest straight of around 1.1 km and cars reach a maximum of 340kmph before the first corner. Even before the lap takes it toll on the driver , they experience around 5.8g of deceleration to slow the car to around 70kmph for taking the first corner. It is the important overtaking spot of the track. The first chicane, the first cor
Read more

How does Formula One (F1) Rear Wing operate ?

Image
Formula 1  Rear wing - F1 Tamizhan Before the diffuser came into action, it was wing structures that were included in front and rear, which are called as front and rear bodyworks. As we have seen in previous posts, more than 50% of the downforce is contributed by the rear body works, wing and diffuser. What is rear wing? The rear wing consists of two elements 1. Main plane 2. Adjustable flap Both the elements are in the shape of inverted airfoil held together in position with help of endplates. The main plate does not move and remains fixed. The purpose of endplates are to compensate the resulting vortices formed from wing edges which we will see in the upcoming post. Here we explore the structure of rear wing and how does it work. a. How does the main plane function? It directs the clean air flowing over the side bodywork upwards thereby exerting downforce that makes the car to stick more to the ground. The whole design has to in such a way, the stall should not happen because of dyna
Read more

How does drag Reduction system (DRS) function in a Formula 1 car ?

Image
  What does adjusting flaps do? Adjusting the flap breaks the operation of the main plate of the rear wing and flaps together as a single unit. This improves the speed of the car by 10-15kmph by reducing the downforce (depends on design) and drag ( 5%). How does it reduce downforce and drag? As we see in the image, when the flap is deployed, airflow over the wing is broken and separated. This creates a condition of the wake that reduces the effectiveness of the wing, much of the air escapes the gap between the main plate and flap, thereby reducing downforce and consequent drag of the car. As downforce and drag is reduced, the car lightens thereby increasing top speed by 10-15 kmph.
Read more