Red Bull‘s strategic tire choices dealt a blow to their Formula 1 rivals’ chances in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Red Bull’s competitors were well aware before the weekend commenced that defeating Max Verstappen in the Formula 1 season opener in Bahrain would be an incredibly difficult task.

Throughout practice and qualifying, Verstappen demonstrated the superiority of the RB20, highlighting his advantage over the competition.

While there was a close battle for the top grid positions – Charles Leclerc’s Q2 lap could have secured pole position – few believe that anyone will be able to match his pace on Saturday in Sakhir.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz commented on Red Bull’s qualifying performance compared to last year: “Let’s wait until the race. I think that’s where they suddenly level it up and manage to have degradation that no one else can have, and a race pace that no one else can have.”

He added, “I think last year, if you look at the last eight races: during qualifying, we were always close, within reach of them, and this year we felt that way again in terms of qualifying pace. In the race? We’ll see.”

If the performance gap to Verstappen has left his rivals feeling hopeless, there is even more bad news for them. Red Bull also has an advantage in terms of tire strategy heading into the grand prix.

Quietly, Red Bull chose not to run on the soft tire in the final free practice session and instead opted for the hard compound.

While it may seem counterintuitive to prefer extra soft tires at a high-degradation track like Bahrain, the medium compound does not perform well in the race.

Pirelli’s Mario Isola explained, “The medium is very close in terms of lap time delta with the hard but with higher degradation. That means that there is no real advantage with it.”

Therefore, the characteristics of the medium tire push the frontrunners to choose the soft compound, especially for the start and opening stint.

Isola added, “I believe the majority, or at least the cars in front, will start with the soft because otherwise they lose too many track positions. The lap time delta between the soft and hard is significant. The soft/medium is 1.2 seconds, and the medium/hard is 0.3-0.4 seconds, so it means that you have 1.5 seconds between the hard and soft. That is a considerable margin.”

“With the hard, and you are in front, with some opportunities for overtaking, then you start to lose track positions.”

The strategy indicates that the preferred choice for the first stint is the soft tire. It offers additional grip off the line and provides better tire life, giving Red Bull a significant advantage over the others.

Sainz estimated that Red Bull’s advantage in the first stint was around two or three seconds.

Furthermore, this indicates that Red Bull will employ the same soft-hard-soft strategy that they successfully used in dominating last year’s races. Other teams with two sets of hard tires may opt for a more conservative approach.

Red Bull’s car design, its performance in long runs, and its tire strategy choices all lead the rest of the field to accept that there is a clear favorite for the first F1 race of the season.

George Russell, starting in third place, said, “The gap in qualifying was probably slightly closer to Max than we all expected, but I think race pace is the important one.”

“We’re expecting probably a half-second deficit. That’s what we thought after testing.”

When asked if he had seen anything in the data to suggest that someone could challenge Verstappen, Isola quickly replied, “Max is very strong, I cannot lie.”

“You can see that from the lap times, both during the test and also yesterday. I hope that the others are close, but I believe he still has an advantage.”