Enlarge image
Charles Leclerc: "That's exactly how we should start this season.
On one and two, baby!'
Photo:
Dan Istitene - Formula 1 / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Joy at Ferrari, horror at Red Bull:
From lap 17, world champion Max Verstappen fought a brilliant duel over three laps in Bahrain with numerous changes in the lead with his worst competitor.
And this time his name was not Lewis Hamilton – but Charles Leclerc.
The Ferrari driver and pole setter defended his lead.
Both drivers showed tough but fair overtaking maneuvers - and it seemed as if Formula 1's hopes of bringing more excitement into the races through the new technical regulations had already been fulfilled.
The spectators had to do without a new edition of the duel shortly before the end, instead the events rolled over.
The result:
Leclerc managed to finish his victory.
Together with his teammate Carlos Sainz, the Scuderia celebrated its first Grand Prix victory since September 2019. Surprisingly, Hamilton in the Mercedes came third.
The vice world champion benefited from Red Bull's double failure. Both Verstappen and Sergio Pérez had to park their cars shortly before the end.
Read the race report here.
910 days of waiting:
Given the new rules
before the first stress test, it was almost impossible to predict how good the teams' new cars would be over the entire race distance.
Not least in qualifying, Ferrari showed that they are to be expected.
But with a double victory – as the team last achieved in Singapore in 2019 with Sebastian Vettel and Leclerc – not even the latter had expected it.
"I'm so happy, the last two years have been so difficult for the team," said Leclerc after his almost flawless race.
“That's how we should start this season.
On one and two, baby!
Mamma Mia!«, he radioed his team from the car.
After a catastrophic 2020 season with sixth place in the constructors' championship, Ferrari was not competitive with Mercedes and Red Bull last year either.
broken down:
On the other hand, Red Bull probably didn't expect a complete failure either.
Although Leclerc repeatedly managed to distance Verstappen, who had started from second place, the world champion was the only driver in the field who was even able to stay close to Leclerc's strong Ferrari.
In the first phase of the race, both of them pulled out a solid cushion on their team-mates in third and fourth place.
When Pierre Gasly's flaming Alpha Tauri triggered a safety car phase on lap 46, Verstappen finally complained about problems with the steering.
At the restart, he was only just able to hold his own against Sainz, after all the Red Bull slowed down, Verstappen had to park the RB18 in the pits three laps before the end.
Shortly thereafter, Pérez also radioed,
Annoyance with the number 1:
The racing team later announced that they suspected a problem with the fuel pump.
"We've had a lot of problems," said Verstappen.
“I thought that with so many problems, a second place would be good.
But then there was no more petrol in the engine.
Ultimately, however, they lost "very important points" for the World Cup.
The laughing third party:
And Hamilton?
The Mercedes had to struggle particularly with the consequences of the new aerodynamic concept.
The Mercedes was difficult to control, after the change to the hard tires on lap 12 the Vice World Champion even slipped off the track.
Mercedes could only watch the duel at the top, without the failure of the Red Bull the podium would have remained out of reach.
“Expectations change so quickly.
Last year we would have been deeply saddened with third and fourth place,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
"It was the best possible result for us," Hamilton said.
"I'm hoping for an improvement with our car, but it won't be quick."
More points in one race than in two seasons:
the double retirement also brought another driver to the front, who was one of the sensations in Bahrain even without this circumstance.
Kevin Magnussen, who was brought back for the released Russian Nikita Masepin, immediately drove into the top ten in fifth place in the Haas and thus scored more points for the racing team than in the past two seasons combined.
Teammate Mick Schumacher, who was eleventh, just missed his first point.
And the phone rings again:
Nico Hülkenberg found out on Thursday that he was needed as a replacement driver.
Sebastian Vettel's corona case had opened his lightning comeback in Formula 1 at Aston Martin.
The team had called around 9:00 a.m., "relatively early this time for my spontaneous short assignments," he jokingly told the sports information service.
In 2020, the year after he retired as a regular driver, he had already stepped in three times when the team was still called Racing Point.
In particular, the assignment at the Nürburgring in October was a close affair: the TV expert had left the RTL studio in Cologne at around 11:00 am and in the afternoon he was qualifying in the Eifel region.
In the end, it was only enough for 17th place in Bahrain. »It was a tough race.
It was going pretty well until I made a mistake."
said Hulkenberg after the race.
Will he be back in the car next week?
Not clear.
But he will definitely travel to Saudi Arabia, he is quoted as saying in "Motorsport Total".
"We'll know on Thursday or Friday."
With material from agencies