There might be as many as six rookies taking to the observe on Friday within the FP1 session that may open the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend. For Dino Beganovic, a driver from the Ferrari Driver Academy, it is going to be his absolute debut in a race weekend on the wheel of a Formulation 1 automotive, and he’ll achieve this in Charles Leclerc’s automotive. As for the others, the names are already recognized: Ayumu Iwasa (Crimson Bull), Frederik Vesti (Mercedes), Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin), Ryo Hirakawa (Haas), and Luke Browning (Williams).
Beginning this season, the FIA has elevated from two to 4 the variety of Friday morning classes that every staff should allocate to a ‘rookie’, which means a younger driver who has by no means raced in Formulation 1. There’s an exception for many who have taken half in a most of two Grands Prix, however for probably the most half, these are drivers nonetheless competing within the feeder sequence and a part of junior applications of the assorted groups.
The doubling of the classes devoted to rookies has pressured groups to plan effectively upfront which weekends they should ask one in every of their two common drivers to tackle the position of spectator. And regardless of the calendar that includes as many as 24 rounds, the variety of weekends appropriate for placing a rookie on observe isn’t truly that prime.
The primary weekends to be dominated out are clearly the six with the dash format, as they embrace just one free apply session. Then come the primary two GPs of the season, weekends throughout which the common drivers are nonetheless in search of the most effective feeling with the brand new vehicles.
Then it’s the flip of the road circuits. It’s very uncommon for a staff to take a daily driver out of a free apply session the place feeling with the observe is essential for efficiency. On weekends like Jeddah, Miami, Monaco, Montreal, Baku, Singapore, and Las Vegas, complaints wouldn’t be missing if a staff requested one in every of its common drivers to surrender a free apply session. That leaves 9 weekends, however a staff tends to exclude these weekends the place new improve packages are scheduled to debut or when there are technical novelties generally.
It’s no shock, then, that there are six rookies in Bahrain. The Sakhir observe hosted pre-season testing and, though the vehicles have been doing their first kilometres, all common drivers had the possibility to place in lots of laps. The setup work required in the course of the race weekend might be much less intensive than ordinary (groups have already got a variety of knowledge obtainable), and even these bringing technical upgrades to the observe could have extra time than ordinary to judge them.
With the Bahrain weekend, all groups could have carried out at the least one rookie take a look at apart from McLaren, which is suspending its rookie outings to the European season. Mercedes, Racing Bulls, and Sauber have already accomplished two rookie classes by exploiting a loophole within the sporting rules that may possible be corrected for subsequent season. Within the Melbourne and Shanghai weekends, Antonelli, Hadjar, and Bortoleto have been, in all respects, rookies, not having but competed in two Grands Prix, so their respective groups declared the FP1 classes as rookie assessments.
Curiously, Alpine didn’t do the identical, despite the fact that in Melbourne it may have recorded Jack Doohan’s FP1 session as a rookie take a look at (Jack has solely raced in a single Grand Prix in 2024), most likely to depart room for the big group of drivers below contract with the staff.
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