BAHRAIN GP – Max Verstappen takes seventeenth win in a row to kick of title defence in a dominating victory
Max Verstappen has won the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix and his seventeenth win in a row after dominating the race. The Dutchman looked unstoppable as he drove a steady and controlled race to finish eleven seconds ahead of his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, the first time in a decade that Red Bull has finished one-two in the season opener in a decade.
Verstappen looked as if it was a continuation of 2022, he steadily pulled away from Charles Leclerc who jumped Perez off the line, and he then through the opening phases of the race built his lead during his first stint on the medium tyres. That allowed him to build the lead which he managed to retain the lead from his teammate.\
Verstappen had a ten-second lead at his second stop and was then able to switch to the hard tyre setting him up just to cruse to victory. From there, Verstappen was only bothered by a minor downshift issue causing occasional rear-locking and ran clear of Perez to win by 11.9s after they had both completed one more pitstop to finally take the hards in what was a crushing performance from Red Bull.
For the first half of the race, Leclerc had ran third comfortably behind the Red Bull’s before a sudden loss of power on lap forty which lead to him stopping on track and bringing out the virtual safety car. Before his retirement, the Monacan looked on course for third.
He stopped on Lap 15 to cover off Leclerc and again on Lap 37, those being the only times he relented his lead through different strategies with his team-mate, who also had much better pace than the Ferraris. But Perez had to bide his time before passing the Ferrari at the halfway point.
Until then it looked all to be going to plan, with Leclerc’s failure being confirmed as a ‘electrical problem on the power unit.’
Despondent, and aware Ferrari are not in a position to challenge Red Bull, he said: “We are very far behind Red Bull. The first stint was as expected after the choice we made with tyres. We were second but we couldn’t bring the car to the end and that is what is most important.”
Verstappen said “It was very, very good first stint where I made my gap,”. “From there, it was all about looking after tyres. You never know what’s going to happen later on the race.”
“We just wanted to make sure we have the right tyres and in good condition as well. We have a good race package. We can definitely fight with this car and also big thank you to the team, over the winter, to get us a quick race car again.”
Fernando Alonso scored his first podium in a decade after Charles Leclerc was forced to retire from the race because of an engine issue. Alonso’s podium is his first in the sport since Shanghai in 2014, all week the talk has been whether Aston Martin could be in the mix and he pulled off moves to re-pass George Russell after losing out at the start.
He then swept pass Lewis Hamilton, then Leclerc’s teammate Sainz with ten laps to go with the Ferrari locking up on the way to Turn Eleven, aided by DRS the Aston driver swept around the outside after being over the rear of the Ferrari as they ran downhill from Four, through the end of Sector One and start of Two.
Quality moves from the two elder statemen as the fought over positions, but Hamilton had to concede the Aston was faster. Alonso’s pass left Sainz holding off Hamilton for fourth. The seven-time champion initially looked as if he might also pass the Ferrari, but he was unable to close in, as both suffered with tyres and had to settle for fifth.
Hamilton shadowed Sainz to the finish in fourth and fifth, with Stroll beating Russell to sixth after Aston pulled off the undercut at his second stop. Mercedes had accepted going into the race they weren’t their with the performance, with Hamilton settling for fifth four seconds ahead of Lance Stroll.
It was a good race for Stroll, the Canadian has been struggling with a wrist injury and also dropped back following contact with Alonso on the opening lap, to spilt the Mercedes as he was over fifteen seconds ahead of George Russell.
Mercedes look comfortably the fourth fastest team, its CEO and team principal Toto Wolff describing it as “one of the worst day in racing.” Last night he remarkably admitted that the car concept would have to be changed for Mercedes to competitive again, Hamilton and Russell were only really in the fight after Aston Martin’s scruffy start and couldn’t keep the green cars at bay in the race.
Valtteri Bottas was best of the rest in eighth, the Alfa Romeo finishing a second ahead of Pierre Gasly. It was a good start for Gasly at his new Alpine team as he drove a solid race after starting last, and the only Alpine to finish after his compatriot Esteban Ocon had a nightmare race before he retired from the race.
Ocon received three separate penalties in Bahrain, one for an incorrect grid position, one for not serving his first penalty correctly and another for speeding in the pit lane, those penalties lead to the team deciding to retire the car after he was running out of the points.
Bahrain has turned into de jav ue for McLaren, the last week has been a repeat of 2022 a poor test and poor opening race. They had finished testing with the least mileage of any team, their second home race saw the team having to pit Lando Norris every few laps to be refilled with compressed air at regular intervals. His teammate Oscar Piastri retired with an electronics problem early on his debut.
Norris finished the race seventeenth classified as he completed 90% of the race before retiring with two laps to go.
Alex Albon scored the final point for Williams the first time the team has scored points in the opening race of the season since 2017. Albon was separated from his teammate by the Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda, Logan Sargeant finishing his first race twelfth the first of the cars which had been lapped.
Nyck De Vries spilt the two Haas’s finishing behind Kevin Magnussen and ahead of Nico Hulkenberg. Guanyu Zhou was the last finisher on track in sixteenth.