[Official] Driver of the Grand Prix: Bahrain Grand Prix 2016

[Born Racer]

Who is your choice?

[ECW Dan Selby]

Grosjean for me!

Fairly easy choice. Just amazing how well he's driving this decent car!

Hats off to Wehrlein who is seriously raising some eyebrows, surely. Looks like a surefire star of the future.

Vandoorne did well, but probably about as well as i'd imagine him to do!

Selby

[bjohnsonsmith]

Vandoorne, a solid debut drive and he must have been under some pressure.

[TrapezeArtist]

This is a bit of an unusual one for me: I've given it to the bloke who came tenth.

There were a lot of contenders. The most obvious one was the driver who hooked up the start, got clear and controlled the race on his way to the win. I could have given it to the driver who came second and kept the Mercs honest, but he was just too miserable after the race, for me. I might have given it to the driver in the new team who seems to have really raised his game this year. Equally I was tempted by the newbie this year who qualified much higher than his team normally does, and held that sort of position throughout, including some good racing against more experienced F1 drivers. But in the end I gave it to the guy who didn't even know he was racing until Thursday. First ever GP, minimal testing, next-to-no-warning, and he qualified well, kept it clean, mixed it with the rest, and really looks like the real deal.

[JeremySmith]

Grosjean a very solid job today, I love to see how enthusiastic he is when interviewed ..

[Pingguest]

Stoffel Vandoorne - he drove a solid race. The thing I like most about him, is that he was quite modest about it. What a great character he has!

[bella]

i didn't even hear or watch the gp but the hero is clearly vandoorne.

and yeah, i like him too. he's always had such a great attitude on and off the track. it's great to see him getting the praise he deserves.

[RichardRenes]

Hats off to Stoffel VanDoorne who came in, qualified nicely and raced and scored a vital point. Kudos also to Pascal Wehrlein and Romain Grosjean.

[Razzzor]

Rosberg: Nah, wasn't actually challenged but he failed to pull away from Kimi throughout, apart from the first stint where they lost ground behind those bloody Williams'.

Kimi? No, he was never going to catch Nico, and I believe if Vettel was still in the race he would have had a good chance at the win. Kimi's too much of a grumpy sourpuss anyway.

Lewis can't really judge his performance due to damage.

Riccardo, nah just a standard performance from him, over a minute behind Mercedes - ouch.

Grosjean did another great race didn't he? But turns out the car must be pretty damn fast afterall, so it wasn't all him in Australia.

Verstappen was quick throughout and nearly caught Grosjean at the end, a LONG way ahead of Sainz. Almost DOTR.

Kvyat/Massa/Bottas: poor, poor, poor

Then there's Vandoorne in his debut back in 10th, great job, he's a future champion if he lands in the right seat. He was a couple seconds behind Button before the retirement, but he beat FI's, Saubers, Manors and Renaults in that hopeless McLaren and I think he deserved to be slightly higher, I don't know how the William's managed to get back past him because wasn't far away from Grosjean and Verstappen for a while in the middle of the race. Maybe Massa did one less stop. But yeah I'll give it Vandoorne. Put him in a Williams - doesn't matter which one he'll beat them both.

Oh yeah and Wehrlein battling with FI and Sauber. Was there another Manor even in the race.

[owrforever]

Vandoorne was an impressive super sub. Fred may want to update his resume'. The Haas team performance may force the F1 elitist teams to stop looking down their noses. Gene Haas did not fall off the melon truck, yesterday. Excellent talent, excellent planning, excellent preparation, excellent execution can work for newbies, too. Deep pockets don't hurt, either.

[TheNo1F1Fan]

Verstappen.
I'm the only one who voted!

[F1Pete]

Kimi....."a man possessed".

What an excellent podium interview to top it off!

[Bononi]

Grosjean for me.

[chillibowl]

lots of stellar drives with Vandoorne and Grosjean really stepping up.

but i gave it to the old man though who showed some real race craft particularly after his first stop....crazy to think Kimi is now the oldest driver out there!

[steve_r]

I went for Wehrlein. I just loved seeing the Manor in there battling against the Saubers and Force Indias.

Could have easily given it to any of: Kimi, Rosberg, Vandoorne or Grosjean.

[Born Racer]

I give it to Stoffel Vandoorne for McLaren's first point of the season and a top job filling in for Alonso. He looked seasoned and pulled a good move on Perez.

[stripedcat]

I'm going to give it to the driver who has now taken 5 wins in a row - Mr. Rosberg. Yep, okay - I'm swimming against the tide here. That is quite an achievement still. Okay, he was helped by Bottas knocking his teammate out of contention, and not really challenged by any other drivers - but it still an impressive statistic. Plus, it is a really strong start to the season - can he keep it up, though? This does seem to be the Nico of 2014 rather the 2015 season.

Special mention to Vandoorne as well. You could see he was special in the lower formulas. That is quite a debut from him. I wonder if Alonso is worried? I hope he gets a good seat somewhere.

RoGro was also very good. That Haas is quite a good car.

[Wims]

Romain Grosjean, what a stud

[GT6]

Stoffel gets my vote this time, stunning result in his first GP and great for the mclaren team to get a point

[FIRE]

Voted for Vandoorne.

Also Wehrlein did a good job.

[Neil22]

Vandoorne, kudos to Nico, Kimi, Lewis and Romain.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

Rosberg: Nah, wasn't actually challenged but he failed to pull away from Kimi throughout, apart from the first stint where they lost ground behind those bloody Williams'.

Kimi? No, he was never going to catch Nico, and I believe if Vettel was still in the race he would have had a good chance at the win. Kimi's too much of a grumpy sourpuss anyway.

Lewis can't really judge his performance due to damage.

Riccardo, nah just a standard performance from him, over a minute behind Mercedes - ouch.

Grosjean did another great race didn't he? But turns out the car must be pretty damn fast afterall, so it wasn't all him in Australia.

Verstappen was quick throughout and nearly caught Grosjean at the end, a LONG way ahead of Sainz. Almost DOTR.

Kvyat/Massa/Bottas: poor, poor, poor

Then there's Vandoorne in his debut back in 10th, great job, he's a future champion if he lands in the right seat. He was a couple seconds behind Button before the retirement, but he beat FI's, Saubers, Manors and Renaults in that hopeless McLaren and I think he deserved to be slightly higher, I don't know how the William's managed to get back past him because wasn't far away from Grosjean and Verstappen for a while in the middle of the race. Maybe Massa did one less stop. But yeah I'll give it Vandoorne. Put him in a Williams - doesn't matter which one he'll beat them both.

Oh yeah and Wehrlein battling with FI and Sauber. Was there another Manor even in the race.

I would take issue with a few of your views. I can't agree with you about Kvyat. I thought he used his first two longish stints on softs to good effect (16 and 18 laps) before bolting on the supersofts later.

I also think Massa was totally hampered by Williams's strategy. He made an early stop on Lap 7 to cover Ricciardo who stopped a lap earlier, but the team had him on mediums for two long stints of 22 and then 27 laps. He then got overhauled by Verstappen and Kvyat in the final stint.

Interestingly, Massa has opted for just 1 set of mediums for Shanghai, 5 of softs and 7 of supersofts.

[S griffin]

Nico, great start, pulled out an advantage and managed to keep Kimi at bay.

[Mekola]

Vandoorne the man.