Formula 1: Hamilton taken to the limits in Bahrain
The new F1 season got under way in Bahrain on
Sunday with a truly “spectacular” race, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. Although it ended with the familiar sight of Lewis Hamilton on the winner’s podium, the seven-time champion won by the slenderest of margins – and has rarely had to work harder for a victory. Thanks to a series of “cat-andmouse pit stops”, the 36-year-old swapped first position throughout the race with 23-year-old Max Verstappen of Holland, the driver seen as his biggest rival this year. For the final six laps the pair “vied for the lead”, Hamilton drawing on all his experience to fend off the young pretender. At one point during this gripping finale, Verstappen’s Red Bull car edged ahead of Hamilton’s Mercedes, said Phil Duncan in The Daily Telegraph. Yet in doing so it illegally went off the track, and “the stewards told Red Bull to instruct their star driver to give the place back”. After that, Hamilton managed to keep Verstappen “at arm’s length”, and he passed the chequered flag just 0.745 seconds clear.
As well as being hugely exciting in itself, this race was a mouth-watering curtain-raiser for the season ahead, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times. Verstappen had already demonstrated in pre-season testing that, for the first time in many years, “Mercedes do not have the fastest car”. The superiority of Red Bull’s vehicle was clear for all to see in the closing stages in Bahrain, as Verstappen ruthlessly “hunted Hamilton down” before committing the error that cost him the race. In recent years, Hamilton has insisted that what he most wants is a “fight on the track”. And it’s now clear that in what could well be his final season, he will have exactly that. “Still got it, Bono”, he said over the radio to race engineer Peter Bonnington following Sunday’s race. “Yeah, not bad for an old man”, came the reply.