F1 Paddock Notebook – Bahrain Grand Prix Thursday

Crash.net brings you its daily round-up of all the news, updates and added gossip from the paddock after Thursday’s media briefings ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

- Tributes to the late FIA Formula 1 Race Director Charlie Whiting are displayed in the paddock following his sudden passing during the build-up to the 2019 opener in Australia.

- Michael Masi remains FIA Formula 1 Race Director for the Bahrain Grand Prix having acted as stand-in at the Australian Grand Prix.

- The biggest media scrum of the day took place outside of the F1 paddock as Mick Schumacher spoke to journalists at his Prema garage in the F2 paddock ahead of his debut F1 test for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo next week.

- Schumacher was given approval from his mother after securing the Ferrari F1 test but he wants to focus on his F2 debut this weekend before turning thoughts to next week.

- Carlos Sainz Jr has lost one of his MGU-K power unit elements from his permitted allocation for the 2019 season following his fiery retirement from the Australian Grand Prix.

- Three DRS zones will be in place at the Sakhir International Circuit, with most drivers believing it will make overtaking too easy during the race. DRS Zone 1 is between Turn 3 and Turn 4, Zone 2 is between Turn 10 and Turn 11 and Zone 3 is on the start/finish straight.

- Lewis Hamilton has urged people to stand up to racism still prevalent in society following the racists chants aimed at England’s football players during a match against Montenegro.

- Valtteri Bottas jokes about crediting his new beard for his Australian Grand Prix win after Hamilton said it was the only thing different about the Finn.

- Sebastian Vettel is also sporting eye-catching facial hair with a thick moustache which was compared to Nigel Mansell’s famous face fuzz.

- Fernando Alonso will return to F1 action as part of McLaren’s Pirelli tyre test team for next week’s Bahrain in-season test.

- Daniel Ricciardo says “the drugs” helped him recovery from the disappointment at the Australian Grand Prix, while he says he doesn’t miss Max Verstappen as he sees him so often in F1.