FREE PRACTICE…
FP1:
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been waiting a long time for this! Formula 1 is back!
After 96 days including 6 days of pre-season testing we had finally arrived at race weekend for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Lots had changed over the winter, with new drivers, new radically different cars but the same sport that we know and love. Hulkenberg made his return for Aston Martin after Sebastian Vettel’s positive covid test; of course we wish Seb a speedy recovery.
As running got underway we were practically glued to our screens to see these cars on track, the liveries looking glorious in the sunlight in the desert. However, our optimism for lots of track running was cut short when 8 minutes into the session the red flag was called. Esteban Ocon’s sidepod had literally fallen off, showering Nico Hulkenburg in debris as he rode behind him on the start/finish straight. Luckily no one was injured and Esteban limped back to the pits where after a short red flag for the debris to be cleared cars were back on track.
Valtterii Bottas had a disappointing session, setting no time after a misfiring problem was reported. He went back to his garage during the red flag and the problem appeared to be fixed. However about 10 minutes after the red flag Valtteri was seen getting out of his car with no time set.
We had our first race weekend spin of the season, with the honor going to Charles Leclerc who pulled off a rather stylish 360 degree spin while on a hot lap. Again no one was hurt; the tyres were swiftly changed on his Ferrari and he got up and running again.
Surprisingly the outcome of this session was not what we expected (proof that the technical regulations were having some effect)- Pierre Gasly topped the times with a 1:34.193 on the soft compound tyres. Ferrari looked very strong with a 2-3 finish with both drivers on the medium compound of tyre- Charles ahead of Carlos by 0.054s.
What about our championship protagonists from last year? Max and Lewis both had quiet sessions with them slotting P5 and P7 respectively. This may lead us to believe they have different run plans with Max on mediums and Lewis on softs. However, we’ve learnt to never count these two out- they’ll be fighting until the end.
FP2:
As night fell in Bahrain, the second free practice session started. With conditions close to those expected for Saturday’s qualifying and Sunday’s Grand Prix, this session would be crucial in terms of true pace.
Most drivers ducked out almost immediately, but this was not the case for Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. While the team of the British driver was still busy working on the car, the first lap times appeared on the clock. Charles Leclerc opened the fastest, with a lap time of 1:33.121, set on the medium tyre. He was followed by his teammate Carlos Sainz. Shortly afterwards, Verstappen also reported to the track in his RB18. Teammate Sergio Perez stayed inside a little longer. In his first lap, Verstappen went into second, on the medium tyre and half a second behind Leclerc.
During the second practice session at the Bahrain International Circuit, Hamilton still clearly suffered from porpoising, where the car bounces on the track. The seven time champion came in fifth in the first fifteen minutes, more than 1.2 seconds behind Leclerc's fastest time. George Russell was also struggling and put down the tenth fastest time at that point.
For the team of Alpine, running a pink livery in a nod to new title sponsors BWT, things looked better, which, with Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, were fourth and sixth respectively in the early stages of the second practice.
Valtteri Bottas, who was unable to set a time in the first practice session, then managed to take this position by clocking fourth in his Alfa Romeo.
The drivers continued to tighten the times throughout the session. Just back in F1, Kevin Magnussen surprised everybody as he set the second fastest time almost halfway through the session. However, he was pushed back slightly as Alonso set the fastest time on the clock with a lap of 1:32.877 on the soft tyre. Unfortunately for these two drivers, it didn't take long before Leclerc pushed for another lap and topped the session again with a 1:32.263. At that time, Verstappen was still stuck in eighth, testing out how his car would feel on medium tyres, whereas most of the other drivers were putting in laps on the soft tyre.
After about half an hour of driving, Verstappen decided to take over the fastest time. After having switched to the soft tyre, he clocked a lap of 1:31.936- more than three tenths faster than number two Leclerc.
The two Mercedes also tried to squeeze out a fast time. Russell managed to take third place, while Hamilton was stuck in ninth, having to tolerate drivers such as Mick Schumacher and former teammate Bottas in front of him. With just under half an hour to go, it was Nicholas Latifi and Alexander Albon in the Williams who were dangling at the bottom of the time list, far from the fastest times. Yuki Tsunoda had a near miss and almost gave his engineers a lot of work. When taking the inside line in one of the corners, he almost caused a collision with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin to almost hit him on his front wing. Fortunately the front wing of the Alpha Tauri got only slightly touched, and both cars got away without damage.
The session continued and the Ferraris took another shot at beating Verstappen's fastest time, but without success. Leclerc managed to approach the time by less than a tenth, but remained second on the time list. Sainz clocked the third fastest time, half a second behind Verstappen. George Russell recorded the fourth fastest time, at only a few thousands behind Sainz, and Fernando Alonso wrapped up the top 5 of FP2 with a time of 1:32.877.
This second practice session was also a tough one for the two teams who apparently are struggling the most, Aston Martin and McLaren. Lando Norris put down the 11th time in his papaya-coloured car. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo had to settle with the 18th time, right behind the Aston Martin drivers, who ended the session with 16th and 17th.
FP3:
With just one session to go before qualifying, the final session gave the best circumstances of the weekend so far as the wind had settled a bit. And for teams such as Mercedes or McLaren, the session was the last real chance to find that pace they were lacking.
Before the green light had even shown, Magnussen already waited at the end of the pit lane, waiting to get the pedal to the metal. Both Alfa Romeos followed him, as well as his teammate Mick Schumacher.
There it ended. All drivers were out there for a handful of laps before returning to the pits, only Bottas and Zhou had set a time on the board on the hard tires, even though it was too slow to be of any meaning. It wasn’t until ten minutes of the session had passed already, the next drivers, being Nico Hülkenberg, the returning reserve driver, and Lando Norris, exited the pit lane to drive some laps, the latter using a new front wing, yellow flow-vis running over it.
Hamilton was the first driver setting down the faster laps in preparation for qualifying. The seven-time world champion set down a time of 1:34,256 on the softest tyre available. His strategy was quickly copied by former teammate Valtteri Bottas, now driving in the red and white Alfa Romeo. Zhou set a time, over a second slower from the Mercedes car but the time was bettered shortly after by the Finn.
With the Ferrari of Sainz on track, Lewis’ best first and second sectors were quickly replaced by the Spanish driver. But his teammate, Leclerc bettered his times once again. Finishing the lap in a 1:33,797 on the soft compound as well four tenths faster than his teammate.
With forty minutes on the clock, Perez came over the radio, saying his brake pedal was a bit long, but the team quickly calmed his mind, telling him it would get better as he continued to drive around.
Max, on his first fast lap of his session, set a difference of three tenths with Leclerc in the first sector, making the graphic turn purple. It was quickly followed by a second purple sector and a third one as well, bettering Leclerc’s time by seven tenths with an average of two tenths per sector.
Almost halfway through the session, Russell came over the radio, informing the team he was still not comfortable in the car with a lot of understeer in the low-speed corners.
With 33 minutes on the clock, the yellow flag was brought out as Leclerc spun off the track, accelerating out of the corner on the curbs, a bit too early, countersteering too much which send his car into the gravel trap. The Monegasque was lucky to keep it out of the wall and to be able to drive his car away without having to retire from the session.
Yuki Tsunoda still hadn’t driven onto the track with a hydraulic issue as the session reached the halfway mark, the chances of the Japanese driver being able to enter the session being very slim. He had tried to get out of the pit box, but Tsunoda was unable to turn his car and he “smelled oil”.
The Haas cars of both Magnussen and Schumacher seemed to be giving the very best with fast laps placing the drivers in 6th and 9th.
Around the same time, Albon came over the radio, telling the team his soft tyres had gone away from him after only 4 corners in his fast lap.
With twenty-five minutes to go, Hamilton set a lap eight hundredths of a second away from Verstappen who was still the fastest driver of the session. Ten minutes later, Russell set the fastest lap of the session so far. Only a couple of minutes later, Leclerc bettered the time to 1:32.640, nearly three tenths faster.
Despite the obvious speed of the Ferrari, Leclerc stayed grounded, knowing very well that even the slightest lack of speed can come and bite him in the arse, saying they lack exactly that in the final sector after being bettered by Verstappen again.
Towards the end of the session, Verstappen went in for a practice pit stop, which showed that the new tyres are giving some more struggles for the pit crew, with a slow change on the front left as the tyre wouldn’t come off as fast as they presumably would have wanted.
With only four minutes left, there was a bit of a mix up in the pit lane, with Sainz not fully stopping to let Alonso by. Luckily, the older Spanish driver saw the red car coming and braked on time, preventing a pitlane crash. The stewards saw and soon notified everyone the incident was under investigation as an unsafe release for the Ferrari driver.
The biggest surprise had to be the purple sector Schumacher set in the middle and then Magnussen who went seventh fastest. Haas seemingly has found a lot of pace with the new regulations. The excitement for the Schumacher fans was short-lived however as the graphics were glitching and the driver was, in truth, seven tenths off the pace in his supposed fastest middle sector.
Then, at the end of the sector, his fans were excited again, only to have their excitement dimmed again as the same problem occurred.
The session eventually ended with some practice starts for tomorrow's race. Max once again topped the timing screens with a 1:32.544, with Charles Leclerc following. Sergio Perez followed, one and a half tenths behind with George Russell as the first Mercedes, this time a lot closer to the top drivers than in previous sessions, showcasing the Mercedes cars had found some pace.
Haas had Kevin Magnussen in the top ten and Alfa Romeo had Bottas, as well as rookie Zhou, the Chinese driver showing what he might be able to do on debut.
On the other side, McLaren continued to struggle with Norris in eleventh and Ricciardo in fifteenth. The only drivers to not have set their times on the softest compound for the weekend, were the Alpine drivers who finished the session in sixteenth and eighteenth.
Something for the drivers to keep their eye on for qualifying is definitely Turn 1 in which they have to be careful not to lock the tyres up, ruining the lap before having even properly started it.
QUALIFYING…
Q1:
The Bahrain International Circuit is a desert track, and the race always takes place under the floodlights as the sun sets and the evening arrives. Qualifying took place in similar conditions at 18:00 local time, with the most comparable session FP2, as the other free practice sessions took place earlier in the day. Whilst the wind was a weaker force on Saturday, a desert track is always exposed to the elements, and was still warm with track temperature registering 26 degrees at the start of the qualifying session.
In his first qualifying since 2020, Alexander Albon was first out when the lights at the end of the pitlane turned green, sporting the medium compound tyre on his Williams. His new but familiar Formula 2 teammate Latifi soon joined him on track in the second Williams, followed by both Alpha Tauri cars. McLaren were next out, hoping to put in a good performance following a discouraging showing in the pre-season testing and free practice. Out of the three teams, the Alpha Tauri drivers were the first to log their lap times in succession, Tsunoda setting the bar with a 1:33.581, quickly beaten by Gasly. McLaren failed to get a reassuring start to their session when Ricciardo stepped into P3 and Norris P2.
It was the champion Verstappen and the Red Bull team who asserted dominance when the Dutchman leapt to the top of the timing screens with three purple sectors and a time of 1:31.909, a satisfying distance ahead of Gasly. His teammate Perez could only manage to pull together a lap four tenths slower. Another driver who announced their presence and challenge was Kevin Magnussen in the new and heavily improved Haas car when he slipped into P2, just under four tenths behind Verstappen. Schumacher in the next Haas car also slotted nicely into fourth on the board. The Ferrari-powered cars were all putting in a good show, as Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas put in a lap which earned him P2, 0.01 seconds the gap to P1. Leclerc and Sainz were next to take a turn at the top of the timing screens, with the Monegasque setting a benchmark of 1:31.471 and his Spanish teammate 0.096 seconds back.
Mercedes, with a new driver in George Russell and an eighth constructor’s title to defend, were the final team to set a lap. On his first lap and the track having a little rubbering in, Hamilton only managed P5, behind old teammate Bottas by a few tenths of a second. Their close performances were certainly something to comment on.
In a qualifying session lacking any mechanical or driver errors, it would be down to the drivers to extract the most out of their cars and use all the information gathered from sessions prior. The top three drivers, Leclerc, Sainz, and Verstappen, all opted to remain in their garages with the assumption they had secured a place in Q2, whilst seventeen other drivers battled it out. Mercedes meanwhile, normally also securely through to Q2, kept their drivers out on track with their original tyres, so Russell and Hamilton would have to nail their laps to be safely through to the next session. The two would manage P5 and P6 respectively on their final laps, but with the track always progressing, there was still a chance they could miss out.
Further down the field, McLaren’s Ricciardo could only improve to P15 whilst Norris put together a lap worthy of P6, and in the process knocked his teammate out of qualifying. Although McLaren have been lacking in performance, Ricciardo may be lacking some experience due to missing Bahrain testing with coronavirus. The only rookie on the grid this year, Zhou managed a lap which gave him a ticket to his first Q2 in Formula One, whilst pushing last year’s rookie Tsunoda out of qualifying. Alongside the Japanese driver, Latifi, Stroll, Ricciardo and Hulkenberg were eliminated. Hulkenberg’s performance is still noteworthy however, as despite jumping in for Sebastian Vettel at short notice, with far less physical experience with the car than his Aston Martin teammate, the German out-qualified Stroll. Another driver lacking first-hand experience, Kevin Magnussen, alongside Schumacher, made both Haas cars into Q2, a feat last completed in Brazil 2019.
Q2:
Once again it was Alex Albon first out of the pitlane, likely in a good mood after not only making Q2 but beating his more established teammate at Williams. He did not set a time however before pulling back into the pits, in what was seemingly an installation lap.
When the other fourteen drivers made their appearance on track, they were shod with the soft compound tyre, instead of the medium tyre which may have been seen previously. Due to another rule change, drivers who make Q3 no longer have to use their qualifying tyre set at the start of the race, so Q2 now purely focuses on pace instead of considering strategy also.
Magnussen and Schumacher were the first cars to set a time, but were soon pushed down by an on-form Verstappen clocking a 1:30.757. Leclerc and Perez would slot in behind, reinforcing the expectation of a battle for pole between Ferrari and Red Bull. Sainz in the second Ferrari car would only manage P5 on his first run, but would later be pushed down by Hamilton in his Mercedes. After being first out on track, Albon was the final driver to set a time but it was not good enough for Q1.
The first issue in qualifying came for Magussen who was hit with a hydraulics issue, and warned about power steering over the radio. Despite settling in the top ten after everyone’s first laps, track evolution and general improvements were a concern for the Haas team, who had a car that looked like it could make Q3. With five minutes remaining on the clock, rookie Zhou was in the drop zone with Schumacher, Norris, Albon, and Gasly, all trying to reach Q3. Albon would conclude his session with only one run, but it was unclear whether it was due to an issue or strategy for Sunday.
With 30 seconds until the end of Q2, Charles Leclerc would go faster in his Ferrari but still remain behind Max Verstappen. The second Ferrari car with Sainz at the helm would claim P2 from his teammate, with a gap of three hundredths to the Red Bull champion. The Mercedes, still fighting for security, would settle into P5 and P6.
Whilst improvements came from several drivers in the drop zone, they were not enough to escape elimination. Ocon, Schumacher, Norris, and Albon all missed out on Q3, with Zhou set to start Sunday’s race in P15 after he lost his final lap to track limit violations. Not all was lost for former backmarkers Alfa Romeo and Haas, as Bottas and Magnussen (despite technical issues) managed to slip through.
Q3:
The Mercedes duo were first out of the blocks with the target of closing the gap to Ferrari and Red Bull, but it looked doubtful that they would be able to challenge for pole position or even the front row. Instead, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Carlos Sainz (grappling for his maiden pole position) would be left to fight it out.
Things looked in Verstappen’s favor when Mercedes booted on used tyres, whilst the Dutchman had fresh reserves. Hamilton would go quicker than Russell, but Ferrari and Red Bull soon topped the initial time sheets. Provisional pole went to Carlos Sainz with a time of 1:30.687, with Leclerc chasing his teammate down. Verstappen appeared strong in the first sector, but wound up third with an apparent loss of tyre life in the final two sectors. To express his frustration, the reigning champion got onto the radio to state his dislike of how the team instructed him to do his warm-up lap.
Mercedes were the first to put in their next runs, and a poor first sector by George Russell left the Brit chasing time and despite improvement he remained P6. Lewis Hamilton, a regular pole-sitter in 2021 only managed P5, but Bottas spiced things up when he split the two cars of his former team in his new Alfa Romeo. However, the main focus was on the top three, battling for the fastest sectors. Leclerc was the first to set a lap- 1:30.558, with the quickest second sector of anybody. Sainz’s attempt to grab pole position back did not work out, and the chequered flag saw him sit in P2. All eyes were then on Verstappen, who had set another quickest first sector, but he would have to avoid a repeat of his first lap and conserve those soft tyres a little more. Alas, it was a poor final sector for the Dutchman and despite leapfrogging Sainz for P2, he would not claim the first pole of the season.
Qualifying would set up a Leclerc and Verstappen battle down into Turn 1, with Sainz and Perez on the second row. Former teammates Hamilton and Bottas would line up alongside one another in an eyebrow raising image, with Magnussen, Alonso, Russell and Gasly completing the top ten. Magnussen was lucky enough for his hydraulics issues to temporarily be resolved, but they did make an apparent return when he stopped out on track.
Although qualifying provided us with some idea of the pecking order, there were still so many questions: could Mercedes keep up on race pace? Did Haas have a strong race car? Could McLaren recover to scavenge some points? Who would win the first race of the 2022 championship?
THE RACE…
Fans from all around the world gathered to do one thing on the 20th of March 2022: watch the first Formula One race of the season.
And they were spoiled with an action-packed race that hopefully sets the tone for the rest of the season. With three DNFs at the end of the race, a first win since 2019, a familiar but surprising face on the podium and a driver who proved his team wrong, the race was exciting from beginning till the end.
Almost every team had made the same start at the start of the race, apart from Magnussen and Leclerc who both were starting on brand new soft tyres instead of older ones like everyone else, and McLaren, who had both cars starting on the medium compound.
The start seemed to go smoothly, with a decent start from Leclerc who cut across the track in front of Max to take the lead. Hamilton had a great start, just like Magnussen, which saw Perez dropping back two places. Bottas had a slow start too, losing a couple of positions as well and then finding himself off the ideal line,which cost him even more and a spin from Schumacher, made him reduce speed and lose another position, dropping back a total of eight places.
As previously mentioned, the only real trouble at the start of the race was between friends Mick Schumacher and Esteban Ocon as the latter spun Schumacher a full 360. The German was lucky to get on the gas right away as his car already was pointing the right way, making him lose just two places. But it was the start of some troublesome laps in which he lost a couple of places before finding a bit more pace.
Esteban Ocon received a 5 second penalty for causing a collision seeing he was still behind Schumacher when he sent him spinning.
Lando Norris had a bit of a squabble with Stroll as well as into the first corner, and the Brit found himself running out of track to drive on without crashing and was forced to go off the track. The stewards had a look at the incident, but deemed it a racing incident and didn’t call for further actions.
At the front of the pack, Leclerc was slowly extending his lead after already making sure he was out of DRS range in Lap 2, before it was even allowed. Max, who therefore wasn’t close enough to try an overtake, came over the radio after just four laps, informing the team the engine was doing funny things under braking.
For the next couple of laps, not much happened apart from the field stretching out further and further until in only Lap 10, there was already 45 seconds between first and last place. The lead between Leclerc and Verstappen had increased to three seconds already and though the Ferrari team were already looking very optimistic, Leclerc kept both feet on the ground, reminding the team he was on the new soft tyres and Verstappen on an already used soft tyre.
It was around that time, Verstappen started complaining about having ‘zero’ traction and Hamilton became the first driver to enter the pitlane, putting on the hard compound, trying an alternative strategy seeing that Pirelli had set the most ideal strategies up with only the medium and soft tyres. When exiting the pitlane, Hamilton immediately found the consequences of the lower temperature tyre blankets as he didn’t have much grip and went deep into Turn 1, almost taking out Zhou.
It set off the start of a whole line of pit stops in which most drivers put on the medium compound tyres. But not Max, who had been losing about two tenths of a second per lap to race leader Leclerc. He went for the soft tyres and when Leclerc left the pitlane on the same compound he had reduced the 3.5 gap between them to only one and a half seconds by setting the fastest lap of the race at that point- but it was quickly bettered by Perez only a lap later.
What followed was proof of the effectiveness of the new regulations. Into the 17th lap, Verstappen braked later into the first corner and found himself in the lead. Leclerc however, didn’t drop back and with the help of DRS, he was ahead again in Turn 4. This continued into Lap 18 as well and in Lap 19, the same thing seemed to happen, only this time, Leclerc kept the car alongside Verstappen’s and was already ahead just after Turn 2.
A lap later, Verstappen already found himself out of DRS and therefore unable to give it another go into Turn 1. After the race, Leclerc gave the world the insight into why he managed to keep the lead. Every time, he made sure he was behind Verstappen for the DRS-detection point, which was just in front of Turn 1, making him brake earlier than he could have. It also meant he would have the DRS into Turn 4, giving him the chance to overtake Verstappen and get back the lead.
After Verstappen’s trouble at the first laps of the race with the engine doing funny things, the team also warned him about his brakes.
The only driver who hadn’t pitted yet as they started the 21st lap, was Lando Norris in the McLaren. In doing so, he had gained a couple of places, but as the cars on new tyres picked up the pace, he quickly found himself tumbling right back down.
As Norris dropped down, so did Mercedes. Although they were not yet losing positions, they were already ten seconds behind Perez in fourth and 25 behind Leclerc in the lead. Leclerc started to pick up more pace on the other hand as he gained about four tenths per lap on Verstappen, he could breathe more easily.
In the front, things settled down more, but in the back, just out of point’s reach, Tsunoda and Bottas found themself fighting for eleventh position, but the Japanese driver wasn't about to give up his position. Only on Lap 30, about ten laps later, Bottas was able to get into eleventh, seeing Tsunoda pit for the soft compound.
On Lap 28, Max came over the radio again, informing the team his tyres were already gone again. It was shortly after, Hamilton was the first one to enter the pitlane again. Although being on the hardest tyre, which should be able to last the longest, he already switched to the yellow cheeked tyres. Three laps later, Verstappen came into the pitlane for the medium compound. Fans waited anxiously as Leclerc came into the pits a lap later. Would the two get involved in the same battle as they did after the first pit stops? They didn’t, as Leclerc came out nicely in front of Verstappen, without having Verstappen all over him into the first corners.
Verstappen questioned the team, seeing they had told him to take it easy in the warm-up lap. Little did he know, it wasn’t the team order’s fault as his pit stop was half a second slower, with Leclerc’s 2.5 and Verstappen’s 3 second pit stop. A lap later, the gap was already over two seconds.
Though being barely on screen, halfway through the race, Magnussen’s Haas was still nicely placed behind Russell’s Mercedes, being in fifth now Hamilton had pitted.
Perez and Sainz, both pitted on Lap 34. Sainz went for the medium compound as Perez went for the soft tyres. With Sainz already having come over the radio to tell the team to consider a three pit stop strategy, it seemed like Red Bull went along with it, seeing there were still 23 laps to go on the soft tyre, who didn’t seem to like the combination of the heat and new regulations.
After his second pit stop, Magnussen found himself in a scrap with Gasly, losing out a position to him. He wasn’t just about to let it be, however, as he fought back for the place, being only a bit too far back. After a lock-up into Turn 1, he found himself back ahead into Turn 4, using the same strategy Leclerc had used before.
As Alex Albon exited the pit, he nearly collided with Sainz as the Spaniard lapped the Thai.
Ten laps after having pitted, Tsunoda got that one place he needed for a point finish, overtaking Fernando Alonso in the Alpine.
As the race went to the final stages, with only fifteen laps to go, Leclerc’s lead had gone up to about five seconds. After the race, he told the interviewers, this was around the time he started to think of Bahrain 2019 when he was in the lead from the get-go until in the later stages, his engine gave out and the only reason he ended up in third behind both Mercedes, was the late safety car. Otherwise the Monegasque would have ended up further back on that occasion. This time, the Monegasque could only hope it wouldn’t happen this time.
It was Lap 44, that Verstappen went in for a third pit stop, going for the soft compound, which was quickly followed up by his teammate as they double-stacked. Ferrari then had to decide whether to react or not after having told Leclerc the lap prior that he had less degradation than Verstappen. As a result, they only brought Sainz in.
As the Spaniard was in the pit Red Bull ordered Verstappen in, after a very unclear message from the Dutchman. Fans waited anxiously as they waited to see what was going to happen to the world champion. Was he going to make it to the end? Verstappen weaved on the back straight after having set the fastest first sector, which confused people even more. It turned out to be some trouble with the power in his steering as his tyres did not want to turn the way Verstappen wanted them to.
As they were trying to figure out what was going on, Gasly’s Alpha Tauri set on fire on the side of the track, bringing out a virtual safety car, which was upped to a full safety car only half a minute later. This gave Leclerc the perfect opportunity to get a cheap stop, which would cost him a lot less time than it had cost Verstappen.
Verstappen kept asking the team to keep an eye out for what could be happening with his car. It wasn’t the first issue the Dutchman had experienced in the race. Leclerc on his turn asked the team to make sure the safety car would go faster because going slow was a disadvantage for him.
With the new regulation changes for the safety car procedures, all lapped cars were let through on Lap 49, unlike the final race of 2021 in which Max won the championship after a controversial decision from Michael Masi that cost him his job, where only 5 cars were let through. The race restarted at the final turn of Lap 50, with seven laps to go in the race.
Verstappen didn’t have the restart he would have wished for: he was fighting his own car more than he was fighting with Leclerc for the race win. Even Sainz had a look at Verstappen, but the Red Bull driver kept him at bay. The restart went smoothly with no major accidents. With Schumacher on the verge of points, Perez ready to pounce for the podium and Sainz ready to overtake Verstappen at the first chance he had, it was exciting.
Schumacher however, dropped two places in the first lap after the restart, dropping back to 12th and down to 13th two corners into the next lap. Perez set the fastest lap after Leclerc had set it, making his lead extend 1.4 seconds. Sainz remained within DRS of Verstappen, waiting to be able to enable it to make his move for second place. Perez behind had lost more than one second, not giving him the advantage as Hamilton was right on his back.
Disaster struck even more for Verstappen as he started complaining in a panic about his battery. The following straight, Sainz took his shot and overtook him. The team told him there was not much to do, as he kept dropping back at the end of the same lap until just before the pit lane entry, Verstappen’s engine gave out. The engine shut down the entire car completely, ending his race prematurely. In the final lap, Perez experienced the same problem in the middle of Turn 1, spinning the car around as the Mexican had no way to control the car anymore.
It brought out a yellow flag, but it didn’t change things for Leclerc who happily joked his engine was acting weird, freaking the team out. The Monegasque was relatively calm as he crossed the line first, for the first time since Monza 2019. With Carlos Sainz in second, it became the first Ferrari 1-2 since Singapore 2019 and a surprise podium for Mercedes who have a lot to work on for the rest of the season.
Another surprise was Kevin Magnussen who eventually finished in sixth, just in front of Bottas. His teammate Schumacher finished in 11th, just outside of the points after the first lap incident. Haas has really set a step up after last year.
Teams that should worry about the car they have put forwards are like already said, Mercedes, who just seemed to have lost that top spot to not just Red Bull, but Ferrari as well, unable to keep up with the two teams, but too good to be called a mid-field team. McLaren is a cause for concern as well, with the drivers finishing fourteenth and fifteenth, with only Latifi and Hulkenberg behind. With their overheating issues in the hot temperatures of Bahrain, they were no competition for most of the other teams. Finally, Aston Martin, who saw Hulkenberg finishing last out of all of the cars still going. The German driver who had set such an impressive performance the year prior, substituting Lance Stroll on that occasion, couldn’t even come close to any kind of brilliance in this race.
All in all, it seems to be a championship between Ferrari and Red Bull if they can find a way to make their car more reliable with only one car out of the four cars driving with their powertrain finished. It seems to imply yet another exciting championship fight.
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