5 Drivers Needing a Big Performance in the 2016 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix

Following the exciting and unpredictable season-opening race in Australia, Formula One heads to the Middle East for the first time this year for the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Nico Rosberg's victory in Melbourne gave him 25 points and the best possible start to his 2016 campaign, while Romain Grosjean's brilliant drive to sixth for Haas saw him voted the first-ever official F1 driver of the day.

Daniel Ricciardo's fine run to fourth also stood out, as did Felipe Massa's quiet but impressive cruise to fifth.

But not everyone had a happy time Down Under; one driver failed to start, others failed to finish and some scored far fewer points than they might have liked. For them, Bahrain will be an opportunity to get their seasons back on track and heading in the right direction.

Here are the five drivers most in need of a big result in Sakhir.

One Red Bull driver got off to a flying start at the season-opening race in Melbourne. Daniel Ricciardo's fourth-place finish was the best the Red Bull package was ever going to achieve, and the 12 points he picked up were more than he managed in the first three races of 2015.

But Daniil Kvyat's Australian Grand Prix will definitely go down as one to forget. The Russian was the first big name to be caught out by the new elimination qualifying system, only setting the 18th-fastest time, and his weekend got even worse on race day.

As the rest of the field lined up to take the start at the end of the formation lap, Kvyat's RB12 ground to a halt just metres away from his grid slot with an electrical issue.

Any chance of making up for the poor qualifying display vanished before the race had even begun.

With both Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr. aiming for a promotion to Red Bull for 2017, there are no guarantees the team will keep both Ricciardo and Kvyat at the end of the season—there's at least a small chance one or both will depart.

Kvyat started 2015 slowly, but he can't afford to do the same this time around. He needs to start banging in the results as soon as possible—starting at Sunday's race in Bahrain.

Max Verstappen did a lot of things right at the Australian Grand Prix. He outqualified team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr., got a good start and held Lewis Hamilton back for his entire first stint. His race pace was good and, armed with a cool head and the right strategy, he could realistically have finished fifth.

Even with a poor strategy, sixth was there for the taking.

Instead, from the red-flag period onward, his race was something of a mess. Toro Rosso's decision to pit Sainz first at the second round of stops went down like a lead zeppelin inside Verstappen's helmet, and the angry youngster took it upon himself to decide his own strategy one lap later.

The team were not expecting him in the pits; his stop took seven seconds longer than that of Sainz, and as a result, he came out behind the Spaniard. Autosport's Ben Anderson points out that, had the 18-year-old followed the team's plans, this would not have happened.

Having compromised his own race, Verstappen fired off a number of foul-mouthed rants at his race engineer over the strategy and, per F1 Fanatic's team-radio transcript, asked the team to be let back past Sainz on at least two occasions.

When no team orders were forthcoming, he tried to pass his team-mate the old-fashioned way—and earned a final black mark on his report card. While trying to stay close through the final two corners, Verstappen misjudged his braking and crashed into the back of Sainz, nearly taking both out of contention.

He eventually crossed the line in 10th.

Verstappen is an incredible talent, but he cost himself and his team points in Australia, and the radio messages revealed a side to his character he could do with toning down.

In Bahrain, he needs to go back to doing what he does best—letting his driving do the talking.

Sometimes, the only driver who can beat Lewis Hamilton is Lewis Hamilton. The reigning world champion had everything he needed to win the Australian Grand Prix—pole, the best car, the most pace and enough tyre options to run any strategy he liked.

He should have left Melbourne with 25 points—seven more than Nico Rosberg—and leading the championship for the 26th consecutive race. Instead, he got a poor getaway off the line, was forced wide at Turn 1 after trying to hang on around the outside and ended the opening lap down in sixth.

In the end, he was fortunate to finish second behind his team-mate, only doing so thanks to a poor strategic choice by rival team Ferrari. Rosberg flew out of Victoria with the championship lead, and Hamilton was left to rue another win that got away.

But the three-time world champion has been around long enough to know that the best way to bounce back from losing a race you should have won is by winning the next one.

There have been several occasions in the past few years where Hamilton has "lost" grands prix he had the pace to win—Australia 2014, Brazil 2014, Monaco 2015 and Hungary 2015—and immediately hit back by taking the chequered flag in the race that followed.

He won in Bahrain last year and in 2014, and a third straight victory at Sakhir would be the perfect way to kick off his season.

Fernando Alonso's start to the 2016 season could best be described as "mixed." The Spaniard seemed happier with his McLaren-Honda throughout practice, and he parked it 12th on the grid in Saturday's qualifying session.

That doesn't sound great, but he only matched or bettered that position twice in 2015—12th in Singapore and 11th in the United States—and he'd successfully achieved the first goal of any driver by beating his team-mate, Jenson Button.

It's hard to say whether Alonso would have scored points had the race gone as normal, but he was relatively secure in 10th throughout the opening stint, and none of the drivers behind looked likely to spoil his day.

Unfortunately for him—and for Esteban Gutierrez—his race was anything but normal. On Lap 17, Alonso was attempting to pass the Haas driver, who was yet to make his first stop. The McLaren was a lot quicker thanks to its fresher tyres, and Alonso was aiming to attack down the outside into Turn 3.

As the two cars approached the corner, Alonso headed left—but Gutierrez did as well. The Spaniard had no time to react to the Mexican's change of direction and smashed into the rear of the VF-16, taking both drivers out of the race in spectacular fashion.

Neither man was entirely to blame. Alonso was a little too close and should have expected a car with older tyres to slow for the corner earlier than he would have to, while Gutierrez drifted across the track as he lifted off and braked.

But being even partly to blame for an incident like that still reflects badly on a driver of Alonso's calibre, and the crash took the shine off what had, to that point, been a fine weekend.

He qualified and drove well in Bahrain last season, and a repeat—preferably with some points this time round—would be the best possible way to bounce back.

For Esteban Gutierrez, 2016 is going to be a big year. Having been placed at the new Haas team by his employers, Ferrari, the Mexican is on a quest to prove that the two seasons he spent with Sauber were not truly representative of his abilities as a racing driver.

Fans with good memories will recall that in 2013, he was outscored 51 points to six by team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, and he failed to score a single point in 2014.

Those stats suggest he isn't a Ferrari driver in waiting; if he wants to progress in his career, Gutierrez needs to replace them with some positive ones. Sadly, his bid to do so didn't get off to the best start in Australia.

New team-mate Romain Grosjean drove a superb race to take sixth for Haas on their debut. The eight points he earned could make all the difference to the team at the business end of the year, and the manner in which he acquired them won him a lot of praise from the team management.

Haas team principal Gunther Steiner told Philip van Osten of F1i: "He did all what we took him on for. He delivered; that’s why we took Romain. He delivered at the perfect level."

And Gutierrez? He also played a large part in Haas' success, but only by being involved in the huge crash with Fernando Alonso that brought out the red flag and made his team-mate's strategy possible. Once he'd climbed out of the car and it was clear he was all right, his presence was quickly forgotten.

Gutierrez and Grosjean could well be going head-to-head for a Ferrari seat in 2017, so even at this early stage of the season, the Mexican cannot afford to become the "other guy" at Haas; he cannot become the driver who is ignored and overlooked while his team-mate is receiving all the plaudits.

That happened in Australia, and once a pattern develops, it can be difficult to stop. Gutierrez needs to grab some of the spotlight for himself in Bahrain.