Event
The Formula 1 engineer’s guide to the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir
by Raceteq
2min read
Formula 1 returns to the site of the 2025 pre-season test as the Bahrain International Circuit hosts the next race of the season under the lights.
Aston Martin Aramco Formula 1 Team deputy performance engineer Tim Wright puts Sakhir’s surface under a microscope to show us the set-up and performance demands of this desert track.
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain
Length: 5.412 kilometres
Number of laps: 57
Number of turns: 15
Tim Wright: “Bahrain is the roughest circuit of the year. This means that the surface itself has lots of jagged peaks that reduce the contact patch of the tyre. You haven’t got much of the tyre on the ground as you would have elsewhere, and the tyre is sliding - so you’re wearing the tyres out more here than anywhere else on the calendar.
“Roughness is important for aero as well. It makes a difference; you want more downforce to push more of the tyre onto the surface.
“Other than that, Bahrain is relatively average. It's average in terms of the importance of the straights versus the corners - what we call ‘efficiency’. You've got a track like Monza, a high efficiency circuit, where if you want to add downforce to the car you have to be careful about how much drag - how much resistance to the air - you’re adding too.
Yuki Tsunoda at 2025 Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain, where tyre wear is very high. Photo courtesy of Pirelli
“Monaco is the opposite. You don’t pay attention to the drag. You just want downforce on the car. Same with Budapest.
“Suzuka, Bahrain, Melbourne, and perhaps Shanghai… all these circuits are a little bit more in the middle. You don't run your biggest rear wing. You don't run your lowest levels of rear wing. Bahrain is just average in terms of demands, with everything except for the roughness.
“It’s got a lot of low- and medium-speed corners so you have to have really good balance for those. The only high-speed sections are Turns 5, 6 and 12 - and you can go flat-out through Turn 12 throughout the weekend, really.
“But it's just a choice as to how much you manage through those very rough high-speed parts to make sure your car is performing well in the low- and medium-speed sections.”
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