Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing team, The current world champion, beat Perez to the finish line by 22.4 seconds, giving him his eighth straight F1 win at Bahrain GP, going back to his win in Suzuka last year.
Verstappen didn’t have to deal with much competition. Charles Leclerc did try to pass Verstappen around the outside of the first corner, but Verstappen had to do some avoiding.
The Red Bull driver, on the other hand, held the race line and kept Leclerc clear.
“It’s unbelievable, I think today went even better than expected. I think the car was really nice to drive, on every [tyre] compound I think we had a lot of pace. It was just super enjoyable to drive today, we really stayed out of trouble and it’s a great start to the year – it couldn’t have been better.” said Verstappen after a thrilling win.
Bahrain GP: DRS Rule Twist and Tire Tactics
The new rules for DRS allow the passing aid to be used from the second lap, which Leclerc may have thought would help him get ahead early. However, Verstappen had already sped to a one-second lead to make sure there would be no challenges on the next lap.
Early races for second place gave Verstappen more room to maneuver. After George Russell passed Leclerc, the Mercedes wasn’t able to make any more gains, and by the end of lap four, the Dutchman had extended his lead to three seconds.
As usual, Verstappen drove consistently and managed his tires very well. Red Bull may have been less cautious than the other teams because they saved a set of soft tires from earlier in the weekend and used them on Verstappen and Perez, while the others stuck to a soft-hard-hard strategy.
Verstappen ended up being the last driver to pit at the end of lap 17, but he was still five seconds ahead of Perez, who had passed Russell for second place on lap 14 with an up-and-under into Turn 4.
This grew as Russell and Carlos Sainz challenged Perez from behind, leaving Verstappen to focus on keeping up a steady pace at the front of the pack.
On lap 37, he made his last stop and switched from his only set of hard tires back to his softs. He was able to use the softs for a solid 1m32.608s lap before easing back into a strong race pace.
In the second part of the race, Perez had to keep Sainz at bay because the Spanish driver was faster than the other Ferrari drivers.
Tire Tactics and Tight Turns: Sainz’s Podium Pursuit and Mid-Field Battles
Before, Sainz had made some amazing passes on teammate Leclerc and Russell to move into a podium place. He was also getting close to Perez at times, but he couldn’t get any closer to the Mexican.
Sainz had to settle for third place after being told on the 44th lap that his hard tires should start to perform better than Perez’s softs. It was still an amazing drive, and his inch-perfect racing skills had at least made the fight for third place more interesting.
Early in the race, Leclerc had a lot of problems with his front end locking up. He had the worst problem at Turn 10, where he said his car was pulling to the right when he tried to brake.
He later switched to hard tires, which seemed to fix some of those problems. On lap 46, he beat Russell with a move into Turn 11; Russell had had the same problem as Leclerc earlier and spun out in that turn.
Russell had a great start to the race, but he had to nurse a potential power unit problem, which meant he had to take a “lift-and-coast” strategy throughout the race. Despite this, the Briton beat Lando Norris to finish sixth.
Russell had some early miracles, but Lewis Hamilton was stuck in lockstep behind Fernando Alonso and dealing with the pain of a broken seat. Hamilton was able to pass Alonso and jump Oscar Piastri in the final round of stops to finish eighth.
Both of McLaren’s cars finished in the top eight, thanks to Piastri. Alonso, on the other hand, fell behind throughout the race and finished ninth.
Lance Stroll finished 10th after he and Nico Hulkenberg hit each other in the back in the first turn. This was possible thanks to smart tactics from Aston Martin, which put him back in the race.
Hulkenberg pushed Stroll into a spin in the Turn 1 contact, which also caught Valtteri Bottas off guard. This was the only big event in a race with no other problems.
Zhou Guanyu was close to getting the last point because he made his first stop early, but the Astons were able to get by, so the Chinese driver had to settle for 11th place.
Kevin Magnussen was able to stay in 12th place ahead of the RB duo, even though the Italian team’s drivers were told to follow orders and move over for Daniel Ricciardo. This made Yuki Tsunoda unhappy, but Ricciardo couldn’t get ahead of the Dane.
It took a lot of work for Alex Albon to get his overheated car into 15th place, ahead of Hulkenberg, who had to make three stops to cool down. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, who were driving for Alpine, were stuck at the bottom in 17th and 18th.
Bottas, who was hurt, beat Logan Sargeant to 20th place. The American seemed to have a problem with his brakes, which caused him to go off the track at Turn 4 on lap 10.
Whats Next in Formula 1
The F1 teams will head straight from Sakhir to Jeddah to compete in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, scheduled for March 7-9.
Check the latest updates – https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2024/Saudi_Arabia.html
Bahrain GP results – https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2024/races/1229/bahrain/race-result.html
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