Red Bull drivers underline contrasting conditions in 'tricky' Bahrain

Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen head to Bahrain next week where a contrasting schedule, and its challenges, awaits teams and drivers.

After a busy opening round down under in Melbourne, teams will set up shop in the less agitated environment of the Sakhir circuit.

But that doesn't mean the weekend should amount to a cool desert breeze at a venue which offers its own specific set of issues to deal with.

Drivers will once again tackle the highly technical lay-out in sessions taking place in very different conditions, running under the hot sun in free practice but qualifying and racing in the cooler evening.

"It’s actually quite a tricky event as the practice sessions are in the heat of the day but the important sessions, qualifying and the race, are in the evening when the track cools so you have to be very adaptive with the set-up," explains Ricciardo who finished fourth in Melborune.

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"Normally if you’re quick you don’t want to touch the car but in Bahrain you are forced to as the conditions change so much in the evenings.

"The track is one that I’ve always done well on so let’s hope it continues to be good to me."

Max Verstappen, who clinched sixth in Australia last week, echoes his Red Bull team mate's observations.

"I always enjoy going to Bahrain, I have a few friends out there so it’s always nice to catch up with them and enjoy the warmth," says the Dutchman.

"The weekend is an interesting one as you only have one session to understand how the car behaves under the night race conditions because the other two sessions are during the day, so it’s a bit hot.

"The track itself is very technical, you have some slow corners and then you end up in some really fast corners which makes it a fun circuit," he adds.

"Driving under the lights is always nice as we don’t get a lot of opportunity throughout the year.

"The go kart track there is really good, I had a world championship race there when I was younger. It was very new at the time but I really enjoyed it."

As a reminder, Bahrain will be immediately followed by the Chinese Grand Prix, set to take place on April 15, offering F1 teams their first back-to-back races of the season.

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