F1 returns to the track in Sakhir: basic survival manual for the Bahrain tests

Formula 1 finally starts again, and it does so with open doors, with journalists and even fans at home able to observe – for the first time without particular filters after the more or less armored shakedown in Barcelona – the single-seaters of the new era. From tomorrow, Wednesday 11 February, the traffic lights at the end of the pit lane of the Sakhir circuit will turn green from 8am in Italy (10am in Bahrain) with the F1 single-seaters able to take to the track for testing until 5pm (in our country, 7pm local time) to freely grind out km after km, except for an hour of institutional lunch break from 12pm to 1pm. This will be the case for the entire first round of tests, which ends on Friday 13 February, but the same script will also be repeated in the second and final part of the pre-season in Bahrain, taking place from 18 to 20 February. But what should we expect from these exciting days that will serve as an appetizer to the great official debut of the Australian GP on March 8th? Here is a basic survival manual to best follow the F1 tests in Bahrain without being overwhelmed. Going beyond lap times The most common mistake you can make when watching Formula 1 winter testing is to get excited or depressed by taking a look at the end-of-day (or end-session) rankings. An example, without going too far back in time: in 2025 the fastest of the three days of testing was Carlos Sainz followed by Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. There’s really no need to remember that the Spaniard had a very complicated first part of the season at Williams, not to mention the enormous difficulties faced by Ferrari. Future world champion Lando Norris, however, was over a second slower overall, only to prove himself as the man to beat from the first qualifying sessions in Melbourne. And therefore, at the risk of being banal, it may be useful to reiterate how lap times depend on many parameters: the amount of petrol on board, the engine maps, battery management (this year even more decisive than in the past), the tire conditions and cleanliness of the track, the air and asphalt temperatures, without obviously forgetting the driver’s (and team’s) choice of how much to push or not. The different work programs from team to team, the laps at constant speed to carry out an “aerodynamic mapping” of the single-seater but also the more or less explicit desire to hide, to carry out pre-tactics by working under the table and then surprise everyone in the first qualifying sessions of the year, are intrinsic and essential characteristics of every self-respecting collective test session. The best way to observe the work of teams Is it really all useless? Obviously not, on the contrary. Firstly, because it’s always nice to admire the new cars on the track and on TV for the first time, especially at their debut after an epochal change in regulations like the one we’re facing. And then there are the on-board cameras, i.e. the footage on board the individual single-seaters which can give some valuable indications on the behavior of the cars on the track. Especially on a circuit like that of Sakhir, which alternates long straights with peremptory braking where input and traction under acceleration at low speed counts, but also long corners in succession from medium to high speed. In 2025, for example, the slightly more aggressive first laps of both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc had immediately highlighted the instability of the rear which would later have a negative impact on the SF-25’s entire season. And then there are the highly anticipated race simulations, when the drivers – usually in the last two days of testing, so let’s not expect this to happen before the session from 18 to 20 February – leave the pits with petrol to cover the distance of just over 300 km, that of an entire grand prix, providing slightly more truthful indications on the race pace, on the degradation of the tires and from this year also on how and to what extent the need to recharge the batteries that drive the super electric motor, which provides the drivers will receive 50% of the total power, which will impact the management of the car during the race. Comparing the average times of the race simulation can, in fact, offer some interesting indications, given that some – but only some – of the variables (fuel load, engine maps, battery charge level) are necessarily eliminated by the fact that everyone works on the same program. No “winter champion” in the F1 tests. Another crucial aspect, especially considering the debut of the new power units, is that of reliability: an aspect that we had now totally forgotten, considering that the previous engines debuted in 2014 (amidst a thousand difficulties and technical problems) and were “frozen” in terms of technological developments by 2021. Retirements due to mechanical failures will no longer be very rare, but could indeed prove decisive in the race for the World title: for this reason, demonstrating that generally fine, managing to clock up km after km in the F1 tests in Bahrain can already be a consistent indication not so much of competitiveness but of a very solid base from which to build future success. In this sense, however, it must already be said that apart from the foreseeable difficulties of the debuting Audi, the shakedown in Barcelona has already shown a surprising level of reliability on the part of all the engine engineers. In short, the tests hardly tell you who will win the F1 World Championship, but they help you get a fairly clear idea of ​​who will have some problems to solve in the factory, instead having to chase the best. A concept that is true every year, but which in 2026 could be somewhat tempered by the revolutionary scope of the technical changes: the cars and power units in Bahrain will be partly different from those we will see in Melbourne, and probably very different from those in Barcelona, ​​Silverstone or Monza, going forward in the season. Starting again from a blank sheet of paper, it is not certain that those who start off on the wrong foot cannot recover substantially over the course of the year: in 2022, for example, Max Verstappen was very far behind in the standings after a few races, yet he won the title with a few races to spare, recovering and then moving away from his rivals Ferrari (on the contrary, they started very strongly). Rakes and Flow-viz, the true protagonists of the F1 tests A bit like Michael Bublé on the radio from mid-November onwards, some of the aerodynamicists’ favorite tools will return as major protagonists in the F1 tests in Bahrain, which can also be seen on normal race weekends, albeit less frequently, during the free practice sessions. On the one hand there are the so-called “rakes”, i.e. grids of sensors, sometimes extremely conspicuous, anchored to the bodywork of the car to better understand the air flows and help the engineers evaluate the correlation between the data emerged in the wind tunnel and the “real” data from the track. Speaking of flows, another tool for understanding the path of the air at high speed after having “hit” a certain part of the single-seater or even just a specific aerodynamic appendage, is the flow-viz (or flow-vis): it is a particular paint usually based on paraffin, usually bright colors and with a high viscosity, which is brushed on the part of the bodywork concerned and which then allows the engineers, once the car has returned to the pits after a few laps quickly, to understand the air flows by analyzing the “trails” drawn by the paint on the remaining part of the livery. How to follow the F1 tests in Bahrain Finally there is the question of live broadcasts, with Formula 1 having announced that in the first three days of testing, from 11 to 13 February, only one hour of TV broadcast will be guaranteed, the last of the day from 4.00pm to 5.00pm Italian time. Fortunately, the dish for the last round of tests from 18 to 20 February is even richer, with live TV coverage of all eight hours of testing per day. Obviously there will be no shortage of the traditional live textual and unabridged commentary on FormulaPassion.it from just before eight in the morning until the conclusion of each of the six days of F1 testing in Bahrain.