It was heart break for Max Verstappen as an error on his part loses him the Bahrain Grand Prix. The first race of the season certainly delivered on the anticipation of F1 fans around the world. Here is your rundown of the race.
Lewis Hamilton was able to carry over the momentum from his 7th World Championship win last year. The British driver clung on to first place in the last few laps of the race on knackered tyres against a car that probably is its superior. The race today highlighted a pattern for Mercedes on finishing races with tyres right on the limit. This works well with Hamilton as he is the master of stretching tyre life, but the Mercedes last season did seem to run through the rubber quicker than other teams and it looks likely this is the case once again. Despite a positive result today, Mercedes have a lot to reflect upon from today with another clumsy mistake in the pits. This is their weakest area and could have an impact in race to come against Red Bull who set the bar far higher.
Red Bull will be disappointed with the result today as it was their race to lose. They were the favourites today and did have the upper hand. Ultimately, this result came down to Verstappen today and this will sit heavy on him. How Max moves on from this result will determine the rest of his season. The positives the team can take away from today is the Perez may have been able the break the curse of the second driver. Perez had a horrific start to the race but performed fantastically to achieve 5th place. It will be interesting the see if he can maintain this and support the team in their fight against Mercedes.
It was a great result for McLaren with Lando Norris finishing in fourth. In post race interviews Daniel Ricciardo was a little down beat but this result will more than likely benefit them in the longer run over the season. It is probable that their main fight will be against Ferrari who had a surprising result with both cars finishing in the points. Charles Leclerc had a great weekend and finished in 6th securing some key points. Carlos Sainz finished in 8th on his Ferrari debut, just behind the man who has replaced him in McLaren, Ricciardo. The rear end of Sainz’s Ferrari was slipping away throughout the race, suggesting that here is more to be done before Imola.
Yuki Tsunoda had a fantastic debut in Formula 1 achieving a points finish and impressing many in qualifying too. Despite a very unfortunate DNF for his team mate Gasly who had qualified in fifth, Alpha Tauri have two drivers who will bring more outstanding results this year. The car looks very promising and is no doubt benefitting from the powerful Honda engine.
It was a mediocre start for Aston Martin as Sebastian Vettel was riddled with incidents and penalties. Lance Stroll made some great overtaking moves but this sadly only translated into finishing in 10th, the only points scored for the team today. In the same boat was Alpine as Fernando Alonso sadly had something caught in his brake ducts which ended his race prematurely. This was an issue the plagued the team (then as Renault), last year too. Ocon was only able to reach 13th today too.
Feeling a little red faced this evening will be Mazepin who had one of the worst debuts to F1 ever. The Russian spun off the track on the opening lap and his race ended there. This comes after multiple spins across the weekend too. It is important to note though that Mick Schumacher made the same mistake on the race restart but managed to keep the car out of the wall to finish the race. The Haas team now seem to be the car at the back of the grid, which comes as a surprise to no one, having created a car that looks impossible to drive.
To sum up, Mercedes were incredibly fortunate through Max’s error. There seems to be a promising fight forming not only at the front of the grid but most likely for third too between at least McLaren and Ferrari. Tsunoda has showed himself to be the rookie to watch. Perez has shown his worth after a challenging race and will perhaps will be able to support Red Bull more than his predecessors.
