The opening race of the 2024 F1 World Championship left two conclusions in Bahrain: that Max Verstappen continues to drive in another orbit, with no one to bother him, and that Ferrari has a problem. The Dutchman, as expected from the three days of preseason – no matter how distracted he was in free practice -, crushed the first round of the championship, Red Bull signed his first double, and Carlos Sainz, third and named Driver of the day , sent a clear message to his team.
The Madrid driver put the show on Sajir with a recital of overtaking to sign his first podium of the year, 19th of his career, and vindicate from the Ferrari bosses that he deserves the steering wheel that will be dispossessed at the end of the season to make room to Lewis Hamilton, insipid seventh place.
As unremarkable as Fernando Alonso’s ninth, surpassed by the two McLarens, in addition to the trio of greats. The Asturian lost three positions compared to the start.
The excitement of the first race didn’t last long. At the start, the initial positions on the grid were maintained in the front positions, with Verstappen retaining the preferred position on the outside that Leclerc tried to give him. The only exception was Carlos Sainz, who lost his fourth position in the paint to Checo Pérez, more skilled at starting than the Madrid native.
Alonso kept sixth place against the two McLarens, seventh Norris and eighth Piastri, but for a short time, since the Englishman, with better pace, overtook him on the third lap.
It only took three laps for Verstappen to go solo for victory, 1.9 seconds ahead of Russell, who on that third lap overtook Leclerc for second place. Meanwhile, Alonso continued to lose ground with the McLarens, also surpassed by Piastri (v. 5) and relegated to eighth place.
The race began to get lively in the middle car. Leclerc sank without rhythm and Pérez bit him to take third place (v. 7), so that the Monegasque now had his teammate Sainz behind him. The fratricidal fight was served. The man from Madrid did not slow down this time, without team orders, and aggressively overtook his boxing neighbor (v. 11) to once again place himself in fourth place.
And Hamilton, who had a terrible start, took another step in his comeback, overtaking Alonso, whom he sent to 9th place (v. 10), with the Asturian falling further behind, without a good race pace.
After passing through the pit-stops of the first stop, Pérez conquered second position by overtaking Russell on the track with a clean overtake, while Sainz was back in front of Leclerc after his tire change, which made a second ax possible. from Madrid to Monegasque (v. 17). The man from Madrid was very excited and went after Russell to take third with a brave overtake on the next turn.
The Spanish Ferrari driver, very solid and confident, wanting to get even after being repudiated by those from Maranello, was 2.7 seconds behind Checo Pérez’s second place, who was escorting his boss Verstappen, already very far away (6 ,3 seconds of the Mexican, v. 19).
Having passed the halfway point of the race (v. 30/57), the classification was more than doomed in the first positions, with little prospect of moving: Verstappen led with a substantial advantage of 15.4 seconds over his teammate Pérez, the Mexican maintained He kept Sainz at bay by 2.5 seconds, and the Madrid native retained his first podium of the year with almost 9 seconds over Russell. Alonso had no chance of recovering from ninth position as he was more than 11 seconds behind Hamilton.
The second stop could reposition the positions and time differences. The maneuver went quite well for Sainz (his stop was 0.5 seconds faster than the Mexican’s), so that the Madrid native was able to get just 1.9 seconds behind Pérez when they both returned to the track, with 20 laps to go ( v. 37). It was up to him to try to chase second position, but the Red Bull had a higher pace and gave the Ferrari no option, which finished 2.6s behind the Mexican.
