Everything is ready for the most anticipated event of the year for motorsport fans: the first race of the 2024 Formula 1 season will take place on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 pm! The attention of all fans is turned to the Middle East, for the Bahrain Grand Prix on the Sakhir circuit, site of the pre-season tests last week which confirmed a Red Bull ahead of the rest of the grid, despite the major technical changes on the RB 20, completely and courageously revolutionized compared to last year's car.
The track, introduced into the F1 calendar in the 2000s, has often been the protagonist of the seasonal debut, always attracting a lot of attention from fans waiting to verify the hard work done by the teams during the winter break to optimize the performance of their single-seaters .
The large temperature excursion expected during the race weekend, with sessions that will be held at very different times and in very different weather conditions, could make it less easy to find the optimal setup during the race, increasing the already great interest and uncertainty for this first outing of the season.
MegaRide chart
Photo by: MegaRide
From the analysis of the “friction power” generated in the tyres, the greater longitudinal stress is evident, i.e. in the acceleration/braking phase rather than when cornering, as happens, for example, on tracks such as Silverstone or Suzuka. In turn 10, you have to face, in combination, a very demanding downhill braking, in which you tend to block the front left tyre. In turn 11, which has to be taken under acceleration, there is a lot of stress on the tyres, in particular the front right one.
MegaRide chart
Photo by: MegaRide
The high abrasion of the asphalt guided the sole supplier Pirelli in choosing to allocate the hardest compounds of the entire set, namely C1, C2. C3, despite the not very high lateral stresses. Expected tire degradation is generally high, forcing drivers to make more than one pit stop in past seasons.
The grip offered by the asphalt is greatly influenced by the presence of the desert in the surrounding area and by the wind which frequently carries sand onto the road surface, favoring a notable “track evolution” during the weekend, also supported by the smaller formula races
MegaRide chart
Photo by: MegaRide
The analysis of the heat exchanges proposed in the graph above compares the weight of each generative contribution on the Sakhir circuit: longitudinal and lateral friction power are the thermal powers generated during acceleration/braking and cornering, respectively, while the SEL, “strain energy loss”, is the rate that is generated due to the deformation of the tire due to heat dissipation, given its viscoelastic nature.
As is evident, the longitudinal friction power has a significantly greater weight than the lateral one, as the track is characterized by low or medium distance curves which favor greater longitudinal stress in the tires rather than lateral, given the frequent acceleration and braking and the almost total absence of high-speed corners that tend to engage the tires in a lateral direction.
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