BAHRAIN GP – Charles Leclerc leads a Ferrari one-two as Red Bull explodes with reliability
Charles Leclerc has beaten Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz to win a dramatic Bahrain Grand Prix. Leclerc took Ferrari’s first win since Singapore 2019 leading his teammate by five seconds after the race was turned on its head when both Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez and sister Alpha Tauri Pierre Gasly all suffered power unit failures in the second half of the race.
Leclerc took the lead of the race when he passed Verstappen on lap x after his power unit started to fail. Throughout the race, the two drivers had fought hard for the lead, but first signs of what would become a headache for Red Bull came when the sister Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly stopped at Turn three in the closing stages.
Verstappen had tried vigorously to fight with Leclerc following the first round of stops, before settling into a comfortable second before an unrelated track issue brought his race to an end shortly after his second stop.
Leclerc’s victory underlined his quality as one of the leading lights of the new generation. Should Ferrari be able to maintain this form throughout the season they will be serious contenders for this title. Ferrari after the opening race holds a seventeen point lead over Mercedes.
As the race resumed with six laps to go, Verstappen began to report loudly about his steering getting heavier in corners and on straights, with Red Bull moving to tell him it was would be an issue to the end of the race that he would have to adapt too. He was then past into the first corner by Leclerc, before Sainz took the outside line and past Verstappen.
Leclerc going on to pull out a five and a half-second lead over Sainz in like redemption for the Monacan who three years ago dominated the race before being robbed by an engine failure and then being passed by both Mercedes in 2019. Verstappen had looked after being past by the Ferrari’s to be on course for third, but the issue proved terminal with him retiring with two laps to go.
Before the Red Bull dramas, Leclerc and Verstappen both fought each other hard with multiple wheels to wheel battles, as they jostled for position on track. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez was the third Red Bull-powered car to retire, he suffered a fuel pump issue before spinning out ahead of Hamilton.
The Mexican had looked as if he would have kept Hamilton behind, but the implosion with the power unit means Red Bull head to Jeddah next weekend pointless.
Verstappen’s retirement had prompted both Mercedes, Hamilton driving a steady race in fifth while his new teammate George Russell managed to get his overtaking done early on settling into sixth. The retirements for Red Bull prompted them to third and fourth respectively in a solid race, given the fact Mercedes had not looked in a position to score a podium.
Russell, who developed a reputation for coming through the field at Williams, making up four places to sit sixth before Red Bull’s retirement. Certainly what Mercedes will have expected from him being a support and rival for Hamilton. Third described by Hamilton as “the best result we could have gotten.”
Verstappen told Sky Sports “Of course you can always say problems can happen and you might have a retirement, but I think at this level, after already having so much information with engines and stuff, it shouldn’t happen.”
Mercedes went into the race looking to limit the damage, they probably exceeded their expectations thanks to the DNF for Red Bull, but they still lacked pace and would have not been on the podium if it wasn’t for those retirements.
The constructor’s champions race of ‘damage limitations,’ while they try to resolve those gremlins looks to have gone perfectly. Hamilton had momentarily managed to pass Perez open the opening lap, but that proved to be the only real highlight, but the Mercedes performance suggests they are struggling to unlock the potential of the car.
Before the safety car caused by Verstappen’s retirement, brought Mercedes back into podium postions, but the pace appears to be there in the race. The theory from last weeks test, Mercedes lack single lap pace but have a stronger race car, though Russell and Hamilton were still a second off the leaders before the late safety car.
Mercedes customers Aston Martin, McLaren, Williams and had terrible races running at the back, Lance Stroll twelfth, Daniel Ricciardo thirteen and Nicolas Latifi fourteenth. The highest finishers for their respective teams.
A weekend where events in Abu Dhabi rumbled on with the report released on Saturday evening, the irony of the last race three months ago saw Hamilton gain from Red Bull’s misfortune.
Kevin Magnussen was fifth on his return to Haas the Danish driver putting in a solid result for the team less than two weeks after his return was announced. Magnussen finished a second and a half ahead of Valtteri Bottas, the Alfa Romeo recovering through the pack following a dreadful start that dropped him down the field.
Ferrari power unit again clearly making a step forwards this season, however after nine days of track running six days of testing and the first Grand Prix of the season is complete, the chance to draw a conclusion on this season and the new era still seems too early.
Haas is certainly the biggest surprise given a tough few years, the gamble to focus on 2022 paying off. Magnussen said “I mean, we were the strongest car in the midfield, I could actually see the Mercedes almost the whole race. I know we got a safety car there at the end, so that helped a little on that, but it was just a different story to in the past.”
But, if you look at the last eleven days in Sakhir, Ferrari is the big winners and the aims of the biggest technical overhaul in decades has created closer racing as well as shaking up the order. The question, however, will be whether it will remain a two-horse race for this season’s championship.
The conclusions will need to wait until Imola in April and Barcelona in May, following three street circuits in Jeddah next weekend, followed by Melbourne in April and Miami in May.
Yuki Tsunoda was the only Red Bull powered car to finish, he brought his Alpha Tauri home in sixth two seconds ahead of the Alpine of Fernando Alonso. Guanya Zuho scored point in his first race in the sport finishing almost ten seconds ahead of Mick Schumacher.
Lance Stroll was twelfth finishing ahead of the two McLarens, Ricciardo finishing almost a second and a half ahead of teammate Lando Norris. Latifi finished ahead of Nico Hulkenberg both a minute behind the two Ferrari’s.
Related
- BAHRAIN GP – Charles Leclerc takes pole a tenth ahead of Max Verstappen
- BAHRAIN GP – Max Verstappen Fastest Four-Tenths Ahead Of Charles Leclerc In Second Practice
- BAHRAIN GP – Pierre Gasly Fastest By A Quarter Of A Second From Charles Leclerc In First Practice
- F1 Today – Bahrain Prixview – 17/03/2022
- PRIXVIEW – Bahrain Grand Prix