by Linus O'Howell
Max Verstappen started the 2024 Season as he ended last year by running away with things to ultimately win the Bahrain Grand Prix by 22 and a half seconds! Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez came home in second whilst Carlos Sainz rounded out the podium for Ferrari.
The most notable moments
At the start of the race, Max Verstappen got off the line really well before Nico Hulkenberg spun Lance Stroll round at Turn 1.
📸 Stroll recovered well having been spun by Hülkenberg.
A few laps later and George Russell made a brilliant move around the outside of Charles Leclerc at Turn 4 as Leclerc was really struggling to slow his Ferrari down. This ultimately resulted in Leclerc being overtaken by Sergio Perez before Carlos Sainz pulled out a great move to overtake his teammate and move up into fourth.
Elsewhere, the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, followed by Lewis Hamilton, were able to pass the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso before we started to get the first round of pitstops. This ultimately allowed Perez to overtake Russell for P2 whilst Sainz pulled another great overtake out on his teammate Leclerc into Turn 1 (after Leclerc had originally undercut Sainz).
📸 Sainz drove a stellar race, overtaking teammate Leclerc twice.
From there, Sainz was able to overtake Russell to move into the podium places before the race started to stagnate a bit (there was a bit Oscar Piastri made a mistake and let Hamilton through though). Valtteri Bottas did have a terrible pit stop which ruined my prediction of a Bottas P10 whilst Leclerc was able to overtake Russell for P4 after Russell locked up into Turn 10.
With Verstappen running away with the race out-front, the enjoyment towards the end came from Red Bull’s sister team Visa Cash App RB as Yuki Tsunoda refused to let Daniel Ricciardo past despite a team instruction, and by the time Tsunoda yielded, Verstappen came through to lap them both so Danny Ric lost plenty of time to Kevin Magnussen anyway! What’s more, Ricciardo never passed Magnussen, and he also never gave the place back to Tsunoda.
📸 Tsunoda was angered by a team decision to swap drivers positions as he hunted down Magnussen.
Drivers who impressed
There was someone who clearly impressed me more than anyone else today and that was Max Verstappen. Max absolutely dominated today’s race, leading from start to finish and I’m starting to wonder what the odds were for Verstappen winning every race in 2024!
📸 Another season of Verstappen domination?
I also thought Carlos Sainz had a great race to finish on the podium, Sergio Perez can be pretty pleased with P2 and Lance Stroll deserves a small shoutout simply for scoring a point given he was facing the wrong way at Turn 1 on the opening lap!
📸 Carlos Sainz took a stellar podium after a strong drive.
Drivers who struggled
There were two drivers that really didn’t impress me today and the first one is unfortunately Pierre Gasly. Not only have Alpine been horrendous this weekend, but Gasly was nowhere near his teammate today which isn’t really good enough.
📸 Alpines woes look set to continue at Jeddah next round.
The other driver that I really wasn’t impressed by was Logan Sargeant and that’s simply because he made a poor error into Turn 4 and he was ultimately the only driver to get lapped twice which is actually really disappointing.
📸 Sargeant was running well before an issue with his steering wheel set him back.
I also thought Nico Hulkenberg had a poor race and was to blame for punting round Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon had a very disappointing day in his Alpine whilst Valtteri Bottas didn’t look particually quick (even if his bad pitstop didn’t help matters).
Overall Race Results
1) Max Verstappen: Winner 2) Sergio Perez: +22.457 3) Carlos Sainz: +25.110 4) Charles Leclerc: +39.669 5) George Russell: +46.788
6) Lando Norris: +48.458 7) Lewis Hamilton: +50.324 8) Oscar Piastri: +56.082 9) Fernando Alonso: +74.887 10) Lance Stroll: +93.216 11) Zhou Guanyu: +1 Lap 12) Kevin Magnussen: +1 Lap 13) Daniel Ricciardo: +1 Lap 14) Yuki Tsunoda: +1 Lap 15) Alex Albon: +1 Lap 16) Nico Hulkenberg: +1 Lap 17) Esteban Ocon: +1 Lap 18) Pierre Gasly: +1 Lap 19) Valtteri Bottas: +1 Lap 20) Logan Sargeant: +2 Laps
📸 Image credit: Formula Motorsport Limited, Carlos Sainz, Aston Martin, Visa CashApp RB, Red Bull Content Pool, Williams Racing.
Comentarios