2024 Bahrain GP Betting Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2024 Bahrain GP Betting preview. He has already posted two comprehensive previews for the F1 season, part 1 is here and part 2 is here. Get his thoughts on this weekend’s opening race below.

2024 Bahrain GP

2025 will see Melbourne once again as the opening race of the season, but this year, it remains the Bahrain GP from Shakir. Of course, the F1 pre-season test was held here last week so the teams and drivers will have got their eye in and set ups prepared. There is a bit of a Groundhog Day feeling as a result.

Testing can be used as a guide but obviously, the teams will now be racing for real. The fuel will come out for qualifying and we will get a much more accurate picture of the early season form of the cars. It is likely that at least some of the teams will arrive with an already modified car. Nothing stands still in F1 for long.

Bumpy Track

The Shakir circuit is noted for its bumpy and abrasive track surface, so we will learn more about any cars that are hard on their tyres. Most seemed to be fine in testing, but with a full tank of fuel, maybe not. It is often quite windy which can cause the drivers problems on certain corner entries.

The track features three straights & fifteen corners, of which eight are in the technical middle sector. There are no really fast corners and it is a bit bland. Rain is rarely a problem, and it was a little ironic that drain covers being ripped up by the cars in testing caused two red flags in testing.

This will be the 20th anniversary of the first race here and the winning most team is Ferrari with seven, Mercedes have won six, Red Bull three, Renault two and Brawn one. In the nascent ground effect era, Ferrari has won one and Red Bull one. Red Bull suffered a double retirement in 2022 but bounced back with a 1-2 finish last year.

2024 Bahrain GP: The Weather

Warm and dry is the usual order of the day in Bahrain, but the recent F2 test here was hit by torrential rain, so it is worth checking.

It will be dry, but not that warm. Temperatures will be around 21 degrees all weekend, a few degrees cooler than for testing. It will be windy for Friday and Saturday, up to 50kph winds, but that drops to less than 20 for race day.

The wind can unsettle the cars, some more than others. It was a big problem for Ferrari last year, and Williams. Ferrari say that they have cured that problem, Williams still looked very skittish in the test. Any strong winds can also deposit fine sand onto the track, lowering grip, which won’t hurt Bottas’ chances.

Driver Records

The winning most driver here since the start of the turbo Hybrid era in 2014 is Lewis Hamilton with five wins. Verstappen won last year and Charles Leclerc in 2022. Perez did get a win here, but that was on the alternative track lay out for what was billed as the Shakir GP in 2020.

Valtteri Bottas has a good record here, finishing in the points for the last ten years and for three different teams, Williams, Mercedes and Alfa Romeo. The two Visa RB drivers have decent records with Ricciardo having six top seven places from nine starts, and Tsunoda two top tens from three. He only just missed out last year, finishing eleventh.

2024 Bahrain GP: Team Records

Mercedes have dominated since 2014 but last year’s was the first without a Mercedes driver on the podium. Red Bull didn’t get a podium here until 2020 in the turbo Hybrid era. Ferrari had two wins and four other podiums.

Aston Martin in their various guises are the only other team to have finished on the podium, so it has not been a good track for the outsiders to bag a lot of points. Ironically, of the minnow teams, it is Haas who have bagged two 5th place finishes from seven races, and what is now Visa RB, had a fourth place in 2018.

First Race of the Season

The first round of the season used to see more cars breaking down, higher attrition rates and that in turn gave the small teams a chance to turn up with a reliable car and pick up the scraps.

As reliability has improved over the years, that is becoming more difficult, but there are still going to be two or three places for the lower midfield teams to have a chance at getting early points on the board.

Haas Go Well Here

Who are the ‘small’ teams these days? That is open to debate, but not many would deny that Haas are one. Since they joined F1 in 2016, they have scored points in three opening races, all 5th places.

Visa RB (Alpha Tauri, Toro Rosso) have done very well in the opening race, only failing to score twice in the last ten years. They have scored a 7th place, three 8th places, five 9th places and two 10ths. Now they are more closely affiliated to Red Bull, and that both drivers have a decent record here in Bahrain, they are both worth considering for a top 10 on Saturday.

Williams are a smaller team now, in terms of performance at least. They scored double points finishes in 2014 and 2015, but only once in the last six seasons, Albon’s tenth place last year. Back in 2014/15, they ran the powerful Mercedes power unit which was a big advantage back then.

Back Bottas

Sauber (now Stake F1) in its various guises have also done well in recent years, scoring points for the last four opening races, three of which were held here. Bottas has a 100% points scoring record since 2014 at Shakir.

The pace of the Stake F1 car is hard to gauge. Zhou did a low fuel performance run on the final day to set the fourth fastest time of the test, on the soft tyre, so it was flattering. Bottas didn’t do a performance run and ended up with the eighteenth slowest time.

The truth lies somewhere between the two. The market seems to think that their true pace is that of Bottas. I disagree and think it is worth having a punt on Bottas to continue his great run of form in Bahrain.

2024 Bahrain GP Tip: 1 point Visa RB to have a double points finish @ 3.75 with Ladbrokes

2024 Bahrain GP Tip: 1 point Valtteri Bottas to finish in the points @ 7.00 with Betfair, Boylesports, Skybet, BET365

I haven’t considered the outright winner so far. Max Verstappen is the 1.36 favourite and that is hard to argue with. His, and Red Bull’s record here in Bahrain hasn’t been the best in the modern era, but they had a comprehensive 1-2 last year.

Ferrari look to have a more competitive race car for this season. Thy set the best headline times in practice, but did so on the soft tyres, which Red Bull didn’t use.

Last season, Ferrari were at their most competitive in qualifying, still not quite up there with Verstappen, but they got fairly regular pole positions before their race pace let them down.

Tyre Deg Issues

The reason was that the SF23 was very quick to heat the tyres up and that is very useful for qualifying pace. The downside was that over longer runs, the tyres over heated, degraded and ruined their race pace.

It appears that the new SF24 was cured that high tyre degradation on the longer runs, although that hasn’t been put to the test in the ‘real’ world so far. If it is the case, it is likely that their qualifying pace will be diminished relative to last year. It is the sensible thing to do, as you get nothing for qualifying other than a better grid position.

Last year’s Red Bull was a little slower to warm the tyres, and they didn’t dominate qualifying quite as much as in the races. but the upside was they worked a treat over a race distance.

Leclerc Best Watched

I was considering Leclerc to be the fastest qualifier at 3.75, but I think it is worth sitting that one out for the time being. We are still learning about the cars relative strengths and weaknesses and I do think that Ferrari may have lost a bit of that one lap pace.

Last year, Red Bull locked out the front row, with the two Ferraris on the second row. A fairly warm and abrasive track might have helped the RB23 to get the tyres up to temperature more quickly than at some other tracks.

We can revisit this market for qualifying on Friday, and indeed there should be more opportunities for race day on Saturday. I am happy to stick to just the two early bets at this stage.

-JamesPunt