THE BAHRAIN GP IN 5 KEY MOMENTS
1 Red Bull dominant as reliability sidelines Ferrari
For those hoping Red Bull’s dominance might slip as a consequence of cost-cap penalties and other teams making competitive leaps over the winter, the Bahrain GP served as an abrupt reality check.
“Red Bull has got this championship sewn up,” lamented Mercedes’ George Russell. “I don’t think anyone is going to be fighting with them this year. I expect they should win every single race this season. That is my bet.”
Is this an unduly pessimistic verdict? Certainly Max Verstappen had nobody to trouble him for vast swathes of the race and was able to focus on hitting his target laptimes to maintain optimal tyre performance, finishing just under 12s clear of teammate Sergio Pérez. It would only have been closer if Checo hadn’t flunked his start from second on the grid, falling behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari during the opening stint… as Max romped away from pole, pulling out a gap by around half a second per lap.
Leclerc had only done one flying lap in Q3 to reserve a new set of soft tyres for the opening stint and this helped his assault on Pérez, but what happened after the first set of pitstops would prove to be the most chilling aspect of this race for the other competitors. Leclerc was nearly 10s behind Verstappen at the end of lap 13 when he pitted for hard-compound Pirellis, believed to be essential on this highly abrasive track surface. The Red Bulls carried on – Verstappen for one more tour while Pérez waited until lap 17 – and then took on another set of softs.
While Pérez emerged four seconds in arrears, he was able to close up and DRS past Leclerc on the main straight within six laps. Thereafter Leclerc drifted backwards into a lonely third place before his engine shut down on lap 40. He had already taken on a new battery pack pre-race.
“We never expected to have something like this,” said team principal Frédéric Vasseur. “It’s the