BAHRAIN: A new leader emerges?
NUMBER FOUR
*I know I’m behind, bear with*
Our first multiple race winner this year, and I’m not sure it’s who we expected…
Piastri puts in a flawless performance, taking pole in qualifying and successfully leading the race to take P1. Impressive.
His teammate does well at P3, but it’s not smooth sailing. (Or driving). Initially, it’s a great start for Norris as he jumps 3 places up from P6. But he is then hit with a 5 second penalty for a false start, kindly pointed out by Verstappen, which gives him a lot of work climbing back up the grid. Much of the race sees him battling with the Ferrari of Leclerc, who he does eventually overcome, but doesn’t quite have the pace to take Russell in the Mercedes at P2. I would describe his race as scrappy, but hey, a podium finish is a podium finish.
Next, Mercedes and Ferrari:
The Ferrari boys play a different strategy game to the rest, starting on mediums over softs, which is effective - Hamilton takes P5 from a P9 start, but their pace just still isn’t quite there. They come in P4 and P5 which is good, but considering Norris manages to get past Leclerc just 5 laps before the flag, and then goes on to finish half a second behind Russell, suggests Ferrari are lacking that extra bit of pace in the tank that McLaren have.
Mercedes have a mixed result, with Russell taking his third podium finish this year, while Antonelli faces his first finish outside of the points at P11. Russell, having had quite a smooth, unproblematic start to the season faces a couple of hiccups en route to his P2 finish – starting the race with a rather dramatic lock up into Turn 1 which nearly plants him inside Piastri’s McLaren, and then finishing the race with all sorts of technical difficulties with no DRS, no timings registering and nearly no dash at all. A bit sketchy, but Russell still bringing it home for the team.
Talking of sketchy, Verstappen has a dodgy one and it’s not his driving (this time). He suffers 2 lengthy pitstops – one 4.7 seconds due to the Red Bull pit’s exit lights malfunctioning, and one 6.2 seconds as his front right refuses to bolt on. He also faces a big overheating issue, terrible grip on the hard tyre, and an inability to brake. After a bit of complaining, of course, he pulls it together and, having made a clever move to stay out to gain position rather than pit under the safety car, brings his Red Bull home to take P6. His new teammate Tsunoda does well and collects his first points for the team at P9. It’s not exactly an old school Red Bull P1 P2 finish, but it could be worse.
Now to the midfield, and Haas are nailing it. Ocon, with clever strategy calls – a super early pit and then missed safety car pit in favour of track position, comes in at P8. While Bearman, having started last, storms up the grid and finishes P10. It’s not so great for their rivals, Williams. Albon misses out on points at P12 and Sainz has a shocker – making contact with Tsunoda and sustaining damage to a side pod (the debris causing a safety car), then locking up and suffering a 10 second penalty for running Antonelli off track, before having to retire his car. Not ideal.
Alpine get themselves on the board! Gasly puts in a great performance and takes P7. Doohan also makes an improvement with his best finish of the season at P14. RB doesn’t have the best race – Hadjar, having finished in the points last week, misses out at P13, with Lawson down at P16. The Aston Martins have a shocker at P15 and P17, and Sauber even worse with Bortoleto P19 and Hulkenberg disqualified.
2 down, 1 to go in this triple header…