RW 1 – Bahrain

The first race of 24 is complete, so let’s take a look at how it went in Bahrain!

Max Verstappen converted pole position into the race win with a controlled drive, which led home Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez and Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz to start his latest title defence.

Verstappen maintained his advantage as the race got under way, he never looked back over the 57 laps, where he crossed the line 22 second ahead of his teammate.

The full top 10 are- P1: Verstappen, P2: Perez, P3: Sainz, P4: Leclerc, P5: Russell, P6: Norris, P7: Hamilton, P8: Piastri, P9: Alonso and P10: Stroll.

A decent result from Ferrari, P3 and P4, especially with Leclerc as he was struggling with the car and it not responding the way he wanted as well as having a big problem with the brakes… Not a very good sign for the Italian team for the first race.

A decent result for both Mercedes and McLaren, some decent points on the board for them both.
Piastri and Hamilton had a little moment where the McLaren driver was coming out the pit lane and ended up side by side with Hamilton who had stopped a lap earlier. The McLaren got his nose ahead into Turn 1 but the experienced a slide on the exit which dropped him behind the seven time world champion.

Not a good weekend at all for Alpine, a shocking qualifying result in P19 and P20, they then went on to finish P18 for Gasly and P17 for Ocon, a big change from last year. They team definitely have a lot of work to do.

There was also a bit of drama between the two VCARB’s as the team asked Tsunoda to move to the side for Ricciardo giving his alternate soft-tyre run to the finish, promoting the Japanese racer to shout “are you kidding me over the radio?” only to eventually adhere to the instruction.
I can see tensions rise between Tsunoda and the team this season, for it to only be the first race and him having problems with the team it doesn’t set of the best image…

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