Hamilton knows Bahrain won’t be an easy race for him or Mercedes teammate Rosberg, with the Ferrari duo breathing down their necks. PHOTO: AFP
The 31-year-old Briton, who finished second behind Rosberg at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, has been involved in previous thrilling and close battles with the German at the Bahrain International Circuit.
And he fought back after a bad start in Australia to help Mercedes deliver a one-two at the opening race after a fight to catch and overhaul the Ferrari drivers, four-time champion Sebastian Vettel and the Finnish 2007 title-winner Kimi Raikkonen.
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“I’m excited by the thought that there will be more races like Melbourne,” said Hamilton. “We know there are going to be weekends where we are a few seconds up the road ahead of the Ferrari, races where it’s wheel to wheel and some races where they might be ahead.”
Vettel and Raikkonen made the most of slow starts by the two Mercedes men in Melbourne to take control of the race and lead for more than half of the distance before they were reeled in — partly due to tyre strategy decisions — and overhauled.
This weekend, Ferrari expect to be stronger still and may have a good early opportunity to break the Mercedes grip on early-season victories.
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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff confirmed that they fear Ferrari more than ever this weekend, but added that he was as worried about the sport’s image and the likelihood of another fiasco in qualifying tomorrow.
A new format of ‘progressive elimination’ in which a driver was knocked out every 90 seconds resulted in near-uproar in Melbourne when the session ended without a car on the track.
An immediate unanimous decision by the teams to revert to the former system of qualifying, in three timed mini-sessions without individual eliminations, failed to gain the full support of the F1 Commission. As a result, the much-maligned new format will be used again.
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“The teams were unanimous in their opinion of it in Melbourne — and it wasn’t positive,” said Wolff.
Since the Australian race, the drivers have voiced their concerns at the knee-jerk decision-making system and called for an overhaul of the administration of the sport.
In an open letter, the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA) said the rules structure was ‘obsolete’ and in need of reform — a position supported by F1’s veteran commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone.
As the circus flies in to Bahrain, there will be as much attention paid to the politics in the paddock and beyond as the action out on track.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 1st, 2016.
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