2023 Bahrain Grand Prix Recap
1. Max Verstappen
2. Sergio Perez +11.987
3. Fernando Alonso +38.637
4. Carlos Sainz +48.052
5. Lewis Hamilton +50.977
6. Lance Stroll +54.502
7. George Russell +55.873
8. Valtteri Bottas +72.647
9. Pierre Gasly +73.753
10. Alex Albon +89.774
11. Yuki Tsunoda +90.87
12. Logan Sargeant +1 Lap
13. Kevin Magnussen +1 Lap
14. Nyck De Vries +1 Lap
15. Nico Hulkenberg +1 Lap
16. Zhou Guanyu +1 Lap
17. Lando Norris +2 Lap
18. Esteban Ocon DNF
19. Charles Leclerc DNF
20. Oscar Piastri DNF
It was business as usual as the 2023 F1 season got underway at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Red Bull picked up right where they left off last season with a dominant car and Max Verstappen simply being the best racing driver in the world. Red Bull had the top two places on the grid after qualifying, with Verstappen starting on pole and Sergio Perez starting second. Following the Red Bulls on the grid were the pair of Ferrari cars with Leclerc and Sainz, then followed by a mix of the Mercedes cars and Aston Martin cars. Sergio Perez didn’t have the best start and got shuffled back to 3rd, but fought back throughout the race and with a different tire strategy than Leclerc, got back around the Ferrari to finish comfortably in 2nd, for a Red Bull 1-2 finish.
As for the Ferraris, you could say they picked up right where they left off as well. Leclerc had a decent race going and seemed to have 3rd place comfortably wrapped up until he had engine issues and had to call his race early. Sainz who moved up to 3rd after Leclerc’s DNF, was unable to hold off the charging Fernando Alonso and missed out on the podium. A lot of concern for Ferrari after the first race of the season with reliability issues already, pace issues compared to the Red Bulls, and tire degradation issues. It will be interesting to see where they go from here and if they can actually improve as the season goes on, unlike last year.
Overall, I thought it was a very good first race to the season, especially considering that Verstappen dusted the rest of the field, except his teammate, by about 40 seconds. The battles in the midfield were great and kept the race interesting throughout. Hopefully a lot to look forward to over the next couple of races with how Ferrari, Mercedes, and now all of a sudden Aston Martin, can try and reel in the Red Bull team. There is a week off next weekend, then F1 returns with round 2 in Saudi Arabia on March 19th.
3 Star Drivers
3rd Star - Pierre Gasly
Pierre Gasly had a disastrous qualifying session yesterday. He exceeded track limits in Q1 and had his lap time deleted, which resulted in him not only not getting out of the first qualifying session, but had him starting dead last in the race today. But in his first race with his new team, Pierre Gasly took his Alpine car from P20 to P9. Gasly also had the fastest lap of the day sewed up until Alfa Romeo pit Guanyu in the final laps to get new tires for the sole purpose of taking the fastest point away from Gasly. Overall, great performance today by Gasly and half of the Alpine team.
2nd Star - Max Verstappen
Most other days, Verstappen’s performance would’ve gotten him the top spot in driver of the day. Verstappen nailed the start and checked out on the rest of the field. Verstappen was pulling out a second per lap on Leclerc in 2nd place in each of the first few laps of the race. By lap 5, Verstappen was already 5 seconds ahead. There were a few worrying radio messages around lap 20 that Verstappen was having issues with the tires locking up when he was downshifting but that seemed to be the extent of it. Verstappen controlled the race perfectly from start to finish.
1st Star - Fernando Alonso
What a performance by Fernando Alonso and the Aston Martin team. I was skeptical about their chances in the actual race when we saw Fernando topping the practice session times on Friday and Saturday and everybody seemed to be hyping up these practice results. Alonso ended up having a decent qualifying session and started the race P5. At the start of the race Hamilton beat Alonso and just as he was trying to undercut Hamilton in turn 4 on lap 1 and get the position back, he got hit by his own teammate Lance Stroll who was also aggressively attacking turn 4. Thankfully for the Aston Martin team, neither had damage but this dropped Alonso back to 7th behind both Mercedes cars. In the early part of the race Alonso was able to get back past Russell, then later in the race Alonso had some great battles with Hamilton and Sainz and was able to get past each for a 3rd place finish. It was a fantastic race by Fernando Alonso to get back on the podium and a huge step forward by the Aston Martin team. Hopefully this is not a one-off and the Aston team will stay competitive throughout the season giving us four teams battling at the top along with Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
Other Notes:
A relatively quiet day from the Mercedes team. Hamilton started P7 and moved up to P5. Russell started P6 and ended up P7. Mercedes was the 4th fastest team on the grid today so definitely a lot of work for the Merc team going forward.
No other team on the grid had as bad of a day as the McLaren team. It would’ve been interesting to see where they would’ve ended up had they had no issues, but the McLaren’s didn’t seem particularly fast, and I still don’t think they would’ve cracked the top 10. Piastri had to retire after about 20 laps due to electrical issues. Norris on the other hand, for some reason finished out the race, but also had a slew of mechanical issues. Norris had to pit 6 times throughout the race which was double any other driver that finished the race. So not really sure why Norris was not retired from the race to save the car, but overall it could not have been a worse day for McLaren in Bahrain.
Lastly, let’s talk about Esteban Ocon’s terrible day. It was actually rather comical. Ocon started out the day by getting a 5 second penalty for an incorrect grid position, which looked like he pulled up slightly past the line he was supposed to start behind. So when Ocon came into the pits to serve this 5 second penalty, the team started to work on his car before the 5 second penalty could be served which resulted in another 10 second penalty. Then when Ocon came in the pits again to serve the penalty he came into the pits too quickly and received yet another penalty for speeding in the pits. The team ultimately retired his car, take notes McLaren, but just a hilariously bad day for the Alpine team and Ocon.
Standings