Back to Business for Kimi

< "Don’t you worry, I’ll be back!"

Kimi Raikkonen flew back to work in Bahrain today from relaxing in cool Finland, after the tiresome hot race in Malaysia last weekend. He will have a new engine for the GP this weekend, whereas in Malaysia it is heard that Kimi had an engine limited to 17,500 r.p.m. for all the race, whereas the rest were using 19,000 in normal conditions. Hopefully this means Kimi can get back to fighting form for Bahrain Bliss! Though, there will be similar ingredients for Sahkir as we head into Sepang…

Bridgestone braced for another hot one

Like the Malaysian Grand Prix, the expected heat will be a factor for
all competitors on the Bridgestone Potenza tyres with the hard and
medium compounds being used once more for this race. The medium tyre
will be distinguished by a white marking along the bottom of the second
from inside groove.

Bridgestone has the advantage that most of the teams tested in Bahrain
over the winter, so it has some idea of what to expect this time round.

"Testing
at a venue where we are going to race allows us, as sole tyre supplier,
to confirm that we have made the correct predictions from our
theoretical data about which tyre compounds to use," said Kees van de
Grint, Bridgestone Motorsport Head of Track Engineering Operations.
"For teams it allows them to engineer their car to be as fast as it can
be at the circuit and this is particularly the case with Bahrain where
most of the teams have tested for six days already this year."

As
for the new tyre markings, van de Grint says he’s pleased with how they
helped the excitement in Malaysia. "I am very happy with how the
markings performed in race conditions. They could be seen well by
spectators and the media and on television they showed particularly
well on the onboard cameras," he noted.

Bahrain: Weekend weather forecast

The action will begin on Friday under clear skies with a high of 30°C
expected during the afternoon, despite some cloud cover that is
expected during mid-afternoon. For qualifying-day on Saturday, similar
conditions are expected, with sunshine in the morning followed by some
partial cloudyness in the afternoon. Tempearatures will rise slighly to
31°C.


For race-day on Sunday all clouds will vanish, leaving clear blue
skies, with uninterrupted sunshine throughout the day. Despite this
however, temperatures will drop slightly to 29°C, with humidity not
expected to breach the 50% mark all weekend, much to the delight of
both the drivers and teams.


This year’s race gets underway at the slighly later time of 14.30 local
time, 11.30 GMT, with the 57-lap around the 5.412 km Bahrain
International Circuit bringing the race distance to 308.238 km. This
year will be the fourth running of the race, after the inaugural event
in 2004. The current lap record of 1:30.252 was set at the debut race,
by Michael Schumacher, with Williams’ Nico Rosberg netting the fastest
lap in last year’s race at 1:32.408. Judging on pre-season testing
pace, this year’s fastest lap is likely to be quite close to previous
years’, despite the introduction of the new control tyres.