At the Malaysian GP we finally achieved our first podium finish. I feel as if a tremendous load has been taken off my shoulders. Our goal going into this season was to get a podium finish. We were all extremely excited that we were able to accomplish this goal so early in the season. Having said that, the “next race” is always the most important one. We’re only two of nineteen races into the season so far, and with the time gap so narrow this season, a lot of teams are working furiously to gain that slight edge. What we want to do now is defend our current position, while running very aggressive races, and hopefully finish with a win.

&bull The Key to Bahrain: Win against the Dust. Installing a New Rear Wing Model.
Without being here, you could not believe how HOT it is! The heat is very similar to what we had in Malaysia last race. According to the weather reports, this weekend will be drier than last year, and we can expect both air and track temperature to rise quite a bit. As you might know, the circuit in Bahrain is surrounded by desert, which calls for some unique strategies to stay out of trouble.

Here, I’ll explain some of the things we worked on getting the cars ready for the tough conditions in Bahrain. First, the new engines we’re using for this race will have a more finely meshed air filter—a specification increasing overall surface area to combat the sand. Otherwise, the specs are the same as what we have been using. To combat brake heat, we changed the setup for the air ducts. We also brought rear wings featuring a new specification.

As for our overall setup philosophy going into this race, we lightened up on the downforce compared to when we ran at Malaysia, which was a circuit that featured a lot of high-speed corners. We brought two types of compound tires, with two different types of constructions for the front tires. This should allow us a choice of tires that will hold up in an aggressively driven race.

Now about the engines. The previous race was the second for those engines, so we were able to take them back to the factory, take them apart, and actually see what happened inside. While there were some definite areas of heavy wear, we saw no significant problems at all. The engines seemed to be in overall fine condition. The new engines that will run for the next two races are basically the same spec as the prior engines, so we don’t anticipate any reliability issues.

• A Tremendous Confidence Boost: Provisional Second for the Third Race in a Row
We were caught a little off-guard Friday. We had some troubles with Ricardo’s gearbox, which only let us do long run testing on one type of tire. A failure in the electronic control damaged the gears in Ricardo’s car, but we were able to have Jarno and Ralf come in and test different types of tires, so we were still able to get enough data to make our tire choice without too much hand wringing. As of this time on Friday, we still hadn’t put together a final setup for our two regular drivers, but we felt like we had plenty of time to make changes by Saturday. Both drivers told us that they were experiencing “nervous” steering when first turning the wheel while braking. Considering the new regulations for this season, there are some areas where we all need to make a compromises, but we decided to take some time and decide whether we should move the setup to a more stable direction, or leave things as they were. Personally, I think things went smoothly overall on Friday. We may have run into a few problems, but I think we’re ready to be very competitive in this race.

Saturday. If I were to sum up my feelings right now, I would say “elated.” Although it’s still provisional at this point, we’ve captured second position for the third race in a row. I’m just extremely happy. The Ferrari team has brought in new cars for this race, and they’ve performed as well as everyone expected. But even so, we were able to secure a provisional second position going head-to-head against the best the other teams had to offer. I’m starting to feel that it might be OK to feel a little confident at this point. I also feel like a lot of pressure has come off our shoulders.

• Tire Usage will be the Key to Victory
Ralf had an unfortunately disappointing qualifying today. I don’t think Ralf made any mistakes per se. He was driving very aggressively, waited just a touch long on the brakes and locked his front tires, losing some precious time. I think he is probably the one who is most disappointed. After the free driving session in the morning, the track temperature had risen to a blistering level, which dramatically changed the overall grip level, and led to a strong tendency for oversteering.

While Jarno had a setup that also leaned slightly toward oversteering, he was able to turn in a complete qualifying lap without any hitches whatever. I think he was able to get the best performance that the car had to offer today. To be honest, I wanted to finish in first position, but there’s still one more qualifying session tomorrow!

We have time to make some adjustments on Ralf’s setup before tomorrow’s second qualifying session, so we will do what we can. For Jarno, we’re looking more toward the actual race, so we will be doing some strategizing for him. I think we will see a lot of teams closing up the timing during qualifying.

I think we have already taken care of the basic major issues in advance of Sunday at this point. It’s going to be another hot one, just like Malaysia. I think the biggest key will be how the drivers use their tires, but I’m not too worried about tire blisters (*the problem that hurt us in the first race of the year in Australia). Having said that, we know the rear tires are going to take some heavy punishment. We intend to have our settings aimed to allow our drivers to take the most aggressive lines they can.

I hope we can make another great showing for our fans tomorrow. We all certainly appreciate your continued support. As Ralf said in his video message, your support is a source of great strength for our team.

I will see you all here again with another Keizo Takahashi report after the end of Sunday’s race. Goodbye for now…