[motor_breathing]

Feel gutted for Leclerc!! He seems to be the real deal and emotionally balanced unlike Seb. I always thought Seb is close to Lewis on a single lap pace and here comes a kid who is almost .3 secs faster. If this gap is for real we will see in coming races. But it will be good for Ferrari not to prioritize Seb over Charles. A master stroke decision by Late Sergio Marchionnie. If he was alive Shumacher era domination of ferrrari wasnt a pipe dream!


Imagine if they retained Kimi and Seb lineup. We would have been thinking Merc is the fastest car.

[ferrarirules]

Utter disappointment from what was turning out to be a brilliant weekend for Ferrari.

Leclerc - What a brilliant drive whole weekend. He is great find for Ferrari, he will turn out to be championship winner one day. Heartbreaking for him to have that failure which robbed him of a well deserved victory.

Seb - He needs to control his spins. He gives it way to much in a position fight. Sometimes bowing out and trying again at the latter time works. Example - It worked for Lewis when Vettel passed him and after the second pit stops he could return the favor.

Hamilton - Time and again he has shown that he can extract more from the car than there is to extract. He kept Ferraris honest right through out the race.

Bottas - He was brilliant at Melbourne but all that brilliance was lost in Bahrain. He was 30+ seconds behind Lelerc when his team mate was just 10 seconds behind.

Redbull were nowhere near the challenge. They really need to find hte pace otherwise this season will be a two horse race. Gasly is struggling way more than Max. Shows how good a driver Max is.

Best of the rest - Hulkenberg, Norris and Kimi were the stars. Just that Hulkenberg was unlucky with failure otherwise he would have finished 6th from 17th

Waiting for China now, hope fully it will be a close battle and Ferrari will be able to triumph and not falter.

Last but not the least, watching F1 on Sky sports coverage is so frustrating. They are so Hamilton biased. When Vettel overtook Hamilton, they went on to question that was DRS needed on Turn 4 where as five minutes before they were talking about the fact that DRS at turn 4 has made the race exciting.

[BeantownThinker]

The first 2 races are starting to separate the men from the boys, especially amongst the newer drivers.

LeClerc : Am amazed by the level-headedness he has shown so far
Lando Norris : Has got an improved McLaren and has been driving it well
Carlos Sainz : Has got the same improved McLaren but his driving has been very average. An over-rated driver if you ask me.
Lance Stroll : Proves that money cannot make up for lack of talent
George Russel : Him and his team-mate both are struggling big time with a sub-standard car
Pierre Gasly : Relatively an older driver but struggling big time after moving to Red Bull. Perhaps, an elevation too early.

On another note,

1. How weird was it for BOTH Renaults to fail on the same lap AND at the same point AND at the same instant. What's happening there?
2. Are we starting to see Vettel come apart?
3. Bottas is hungrier than ever and is out to prove a point this year.
4. Max is relatively quiet in the first 2 races.

[fiat_tarun]

So glad to see Ferrari letting their drivers race each other . Hope this continues all season. Leclerc was amazing all weekend and it was truly heartbreaking what happened to him.

Vettel time and again screwing up in pressure situations. Not at all acceptable from a 4 time WC.

I think 2019 is going to be quite exciting

Originally Posted by Vid6639

...

Anyone knows how Vettel lost the front wing? Was it really due to vibrations the wing popped off.

Yup, Vettel said it himself during the interviews. I think he flat spotted him tyres badly in the spin and the vibrations after caused the wing to break off.

Originally Posted by jpcoolguy

... Renault's reliability issues costing RBR the podium once again .

...

By RBR I'm assuming you meant Red Bull Racing right ? RBR is with Honda this year.

[RM Motorsports]

Bahrain Grand Prix: Race Highlights

It was a very entertaining race. Ferrari went from Hero to Zero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VjWY--QdMA

[SJM1214]

Felt bad for Leclerc. A 21-year-old faced the harsh and unforgiving reality of motor racing. He performed amazingly entire weekend. It felt his first F1 victory was in the grasp but then he was denied. Thanks to Safety car during the last laps, he got the Podium.

I always feel that Hamilton is lucky. Saying that Ofcrouse "lucky" is not a suitable word for him. He was fast and at the right spot at the right time.

Overall an amazing race.

[sgiitk]

Feel sorry for LeClerc. He deserved to win. He had run the opposition into the ground, fair and square. Tough luck that his Turbo packed up. As for Vettel he lost out due to his own error.

I think Ferrari has unearthed a real jewel. I expect him to be numero uno soon.

[rohitoasis]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Feel sorry for LeClerc. He deserved to win. He had run the opposition into the ground, fair and square. Tough luck that his Turbo packed up. As for Vettel he lost out due to his own error.

I think Ferrari has unearthed a real jewel. I expect him to be numero uno soon.

My TV was not working. Even a Hamilton fanboy in me was gutted the Following the developments in the Formula 1 website updates and hearing his reaction as the engine packed up. While the theory was MGU-H Failure earlier. It was later confirmed by Ferrari that one of the 6 cylinder was misfiring which caused this. Imagine losing 40 Kmh in the longest straights. Poor kid was just sitting ducks till the safety car saved his podium finish.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

By RBR I'm assuming you meant Red Bull Racing right ? RBR is with Honda this year.

You didn't the joke.
What he meant - If Renault was reliable, then both Hulk and Ricc would have finished the race, and there wouldn't have been a safety car, and Verstappen was on course to overtake LeCelerc to final podium position.

[Hatari]

What a great race! Absolute shame for LeClerc who drove a faultless weekend. Completely demolished Vettel all weekend long! Hope Ferrari solve their problems for China.

Impressed with Norris, kept calm after the chaotic 1st lap and drove a mature race to 6th. Carlos needs his maturity! There was no need to risk it all with Max so early in the race.

Bigger shame for Renault.. what is going on there!?

[sun_king]

Lap 46, the 21 year old racer in scarlet overalls was on the verge of making history as the youngest F1 winner in a Ferrari and then "There's something strange with the engine"... easily the most heartbreaking race transmission of this decade.

Finally the young blood that Ferrari desperately needed to start doing what Vettel was hired to do. Buckle up kid, the 1000th F1 race is up next, what better venue to make history?

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

You didn't the joke.
What he meant - If Renault was reliable, then both Hulk and Ricc would have finished the race, and there wouldn't have been a safety car, and Verstappen was on course to overtake LeCelerc to final podium position.

Haha. My bad!

On a related note, this RBR Renault relationship and the eventual breakup has been featured in the Netflix F1 show, 'Drive to Survive'. The biggest loser in all this seems to be Daniel Ricciardo. Would love to see him in one of the front running teams.

[shibujp]

Charles LeClerc announced his entry into the big boys league and how!! Driving a race that you would more associate with his more illustrious team mate, he would have romped home to victory if it had not been for the lack of reliability of his Ferrari. At the start I thought his lack of experience showed, when he seemed not to have warmed up his tyres adequately coasting upto the start line while Vettel was aggressively weaving to build up tyre temperature.

Charles lost 3 places in the span of a few corners but I like he fact that he calmly pulled it back,eventually overtaking Vettel into the lead. Vettel seems to forget that he is not driving a Red Bull which seems to allow it's drivers to pull off moves that in any other car on the grid would make you look like a fool. Tailwind not withstanding, he could have let Hamilton through and then challenged him later. He was lucky to have made it to P5.

Lando Norris drove an excellent race to put the McLaren into the points. Sainz also drove a great race until he tangled with Verstappen which was a shame.

Leclerc seems to have started well with this stated objective. The first two races reminds me of Vettel's last year in RBR being challenged by an up and coming Riccardo.

Drive on,
Shibu

[IndianAutoEnthu]

Not quite surprised with the champion of Lewis Hamilton this time. Look at his career profile. Bravo!!!

[fz_rider]

When the name Schumacher returns to F1 pit lane, it creates such a buzz. Well, the junior had a good day in the red overalls, finishing with quite a number of laps and second fastest overall.