The 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix (formally known as the 2012 Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 22 April 2012 at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain. It was the first time Formula One returned to Bahrain after the 2011 race was cancelled due to ongoing anti-government protests. The race, the eighth running of the Bahrain Grand Prix, was contested over 57 laps and was the fourth round of the 2012 Formula One season.
Sebastian Vettel started the race from pole position, leading into the first corner and for the majority of the race en route to victory. He was not without pressure though, as the Lotus of Kimi Räikkönen climbed the field, having started in eleventh place, and challenged for the lead before finishing second. Räikkönen's teammate Romain Grosjean took the first podium finish of his career by finishing third, after having a strong start and quickly moving into second place by overtaking Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber. Räikkönen passed Grosjean for second place roughly halfway through the race, being on a better tyre strategy. Hamilton started on the front row, but pitstop errors and degrading tyres left him eighth; his McLaren teammate, Jenson Button, retired with two laps remaining.
The decision to hold the race despite ongoing protests and violence has been described as "controversial" by Al Jazeera English, CNN, AFP and Sky News. The Independent named it "one of the most controversial in the history of the sport".
Report
Background After using the "endurance circuit" in 2010, the series reverted to using the "Grand Prix" configuration for the 2012 race.
As the 2011 race was cancelled, the teams arrived in Bahrain with no data on how the Pirelli tyres introduced for the 2011 season would behave at the Sakhir circuit. Furthermore, Pirelli revised their tyre compounds for the 2012 season, and with the races in Australia, Malaysia and China being run in cool or wet conditions, there was no data available on how the 2012-specification Pirelli tyres would performance in the hot and dry conditions expected in Bahrain. The teams were supplied with the medium and soft compounds, the same selection that had been provided at the previous race in Shanghai. Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber predicted that the teams who understood the behaviour of the tyres first would be the most successful in the race. Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg – who won his first race in China one week prior to the race – supported this prediction, suggesting that understanding tyre behaviour would be a recurring theme throughout the season, and critical to the championship. Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery predicted that teams would experience a high rate of tyre degradation, and that sand on the circuit surface could cause graining on the tyres.
Similarly, the Drag Reduction System (DRS) was introduced for the 2011 season, and consequently had never been used at the Bahrain International Circuit in a race. Race officials elected to place it on the start-finish straight to allow for overtaking into the first corner complex. The DRS detection point was positioned from the apex to Turn 14, with the activation point located after the final corner, creating a DRS zone of .
Williams driver Pastor Maldonado was given a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change when the team discovered an undiagnosed fault in his gearbox and they were forced to replace it. Under Formula One regulations, a gearbox must be used for five consecutive events (including the race, qualifying session and third practice session for each event). An unscheduled gearbox change results in an automatic five-place grid penalty, applied after the qualifying session. Maldonado became the fourth driver of the 2012 season to receive a gearbox penalty, after Sergio Pérez, Kimi Räikkönen and Lewis Hamilton all made similar changes in Australia, Malaysia and China.
Valtteri Bottas replaced Bruno Senna at Williams for the first practice session. It was Bottas' third session, of a scheduled fifteen, driving Senna's car. Bottas was the only reserve driver to take part in a practice session.
Free practice The first ninety-minute practice session began with the drivers performing installation laps, returning to pit lane before setting a lap time so as to work on the car setup. The majority of drivers completed the session using the harder "prime" tyres, while several teams – including Ferrari and Lotus – used the session to test new aerodynamic configurations to their front and rear wings. The surface of the circuit was visibly sandy, owing to a lack of use in the two years prior to the event. Force India's Nico Hülkenberg was the first driver to record a lap time, twenty minutes into the session. Romain Grosjean moved to the top of the timing sheets as the majority of drivers began to emerge from the pit lane for timed runs, though the difference between Grosjean's time and Hülkenberg's was negligible. Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel both improved upon the fastest times, but by the time every driver had recorded a timed lap, it was Lewis Hamilton who posted the fastest time. Hamilton's time of 1:33.572 went unchallenged for the remainder of the session. Vettel was second-fastest, three-tenths behind the McLaren driver, while Paul di Resta in the second Force India was third, having switched to the softer "option" tyres in the last ten minutes.
With Force India electing not to take part in the second session over security concerns, twenty-two cars took to the circuit for Friday's second ninety-minute practice session. A GP2 practice session between the first and second Formula One sessions meant that some of the sand on the surface of the circuit was cleaned up, and teams began their first runs on the softer option compound of tyres. Narain Karthikeyan was the first driver out, setting a lap time of 1:41.710 almost straight away. Several other drivers, including Jean-Éric Vergne, Vitaly Petrov, Pastor Maldonado, Timo Glock and Daniel Ricciardo also emerged, setting lap times within the first five minutes of the session starting. After the initial rush of the first fifteen minutes, Jenson Button emerged as the fastest man on the circuit before being surpassed by Mark Webber moments later. Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Nico Rosberg all led the field by the halfway point, but it was Rosberg who led the way into the final ten minutes of the session when all twenty-two cars were out on the circuit together. Rosberg's time of 1:32.816 was enough to see him through to the end of the session in front, four-tenths of a second faster than Webber, with Vettel third. After finishing in front in the first session, Lewis Hamilton was fourth, while Bruno Senna – back in his car after being replaced by Bottas in the first session – ended the session in eighteenth, behind the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen and narrowly ahead of Marussia driver Timo Glock.
The third and final practice session took place on Saturday morning, three hours before qualifying, and sixty minutes in length. A localised sandstorm nearby meant that the air around the circuit was dusty, but a westerly wind pushed the dusty cloud away from the circuit as the session wore on. Jean-Éric Vergne was the first driver to leave the pits, leading a group of fourteen, but they returned to the lane immediately; with the cars being switched to race specification the night before, further installation laps were needed. Paul di Resta was the first driver to record a lap time, a 1:41.356, set ten minutes into the session. He was followed closely by teammate Nico Hülkenberg, with both drivers following an extensive testing program, having missed the second free practice session; after one hour, they had completed forty-three laps between them. Nico Rosberg once again finished the session fastest with a time of 1:33.254. Vettel and Webber were second and third, with Hamilton fourth.
Qualifying Formula One qualifying uses a three-stage "knockout" system. Qualifying takes place over the course of one hour, broken up into three periods known as Q1, Q2 and Q3. Q1 is twenty minutes long, and sees all twenty-four drivers take part. At the end of the twenty-minute session, the seven slowest drivers are eliminated, filling positions eighteen to twenty-four on the grid. After a short break, the drivers' times are reset and the second session – Q2 – begins. Q2 is fifteen minutes long, and is contested by the remaining seventeen drivers. After the fifteen-minute session has passed, the slowest seven drivers are once again eliminated, filling positions eleven to seventeen on the grid. This leaves the ten fastest drivers to contest the final qualifying period, Q3. Q3 is ten minutes long, and sets positions one through to ten on the grid. Drivers who contest Q3 must start the race on the set of tyres that they recorded their fastest lap time with. Drivers who are eliminated in Q1 and Q2 are free to start the race on any set of tyres they choose. Any relevant penalties from the previous race or current race weekend are applied after the completion of the three qualifying periods.
In order to take part in the race, a driver must set a time within 107% of the fastest lap time in Q1. For example, if the fastest time in Q1 is one minute, forty seconds, then a driver must set a time faster than one minute and forty-seven seconds to qualify for the race.
Q1
Qualifying started at 1400 local time, with the track surface measuring and a headwind down the main straight.
The first period saw two distinct, informal phases. Most drivers recorded a "banker" lap on the harder prime tyres, so as to have a benchmark time to their name. Some drivers, most notably Fernando Alonso, chose to set their first lap on the softer option tyres so as to preserve an extra set of tyres for the race given the high rate of degradation. The session ran for the full twenty minutes without interruption, though Nico Rosberg ran wide at Turn 5 and passed through a gravel trap, while Kimi Räikkönen was observed violently hitting a kerb.
Toro Rosso driver Jean-Éric Vergne spent most of the period facing the threat of elimination, even though he was as high up the order as sixth at one point, after putting on the softer tyres. However, as the second phase of the session began, the drivers switched to the softer tyres and the order changed rapidly. Vergne fell back down the order and was ultimately eliminated. It was the third consecutive Grand Prix in which he was eliminated in Q1. He was later cited by the stewards for missing the weighbridge at the end of the qualifying period. Michael Schumacher was hampered by a problem with the DRS flap in his rear wing, and a late lap from Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen saw Schumacher eliminated and Kovalainen advance through to Q2. It was just the second time that Kovalainen and his team had qualified in Q2 while running in dry conditions (the other being the 2011 Spanish Grand Prix). Kovalainen's teammate, Vitaly Petrov, was eliminated after his final lap was not enough to replicate Kovalainen's feat.
Also eliminated were the Marussias for Timo Glock and Charles Pic. Pic finished twenty-first, out-qualifying teammate Glock for the first time in his career. Glock set an early time on the harder compound tyres, but a mistake on his flying lap with the softer compound meant that he qualified twenty-third of twenty-four cars. The HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan finished in twenty-second and twenty-fourth; both were inside the 107% margin (1:40.380), but they were still four seconds off the pace of Sergio Pérez, the fastest man in Q1.
Q2