[Emvi]

FIREWORKS galore in the season opener!
1. Leclerc-Verstappen dicing
2. Cars bottoming out

Is the racetrack so bumpy!?

[Akshay6988]

So nice to see real racing and not 20 cars hot lapping for 90 minutes punctuated by the occasional overtake.

It's only the first race and Bahrain is notorious for being overtake-friendly, but damn these new regs seem to be working !

[Chetan_Rao]

The Ferrari PU seems to have terrific tractability. All the Ferrari powered cars are getting better exits out of slower corners than the Merc powered ones.

Very interesting.

[speedmiester]

Excellent race for a new season.

Ferrari 1 and 2, what a comeback by the Scuderia to get here.

The tussel between Leclerc and Max after the first round of pitstops was brilliant. Leclerc kept a cool head even after losing position at first corner to come back at Max to take back the lead.

The safety car brought back some excitement closer to the end.

Great effort from Magnussen and Bottas to be up with the top contenders. Good recovery drive by Bottas after falling to 14th place at the end of first lap.

Disaster for Red bull with both cars losing out at the end of the race.

Even though the Ferrari is 1-2, this is not going to a season where one constructor or one driver will take it home, we will be seeing a lot of close racing this season.

[Emvi]

Ferrari 1-2 after a long time!

Dream start to the season from Ferrari, absolutely disastrous result for Red Bull Racing. Lucky Lewis!

[Chetan_Rao]

3 of 4 Red Bull cars with terminal PU issues, one went up in smoke. Not a good start for the Powertrain division.

Mercedes were nearly a second a lap down on race pace, 37 seconds off the lead at the final stop not counting the SC bunching them up.

Ferrari have started the season as well as they could've possibly expected. Two solid drivers and the best package out of the blocks.

[deetjohn]

Oh yeah! Bravo!! A 1, 2 after waiting for more than 2 years. Totally worth it! So happy for the team and Binotto! And very well deserved. That Ferrari is as fast as its beautiful.

Charles didn't put a foot wrong today! So much pressure from Max as expected, but he soaked it all in from the world champion. Just like Monza 2019.

It was heartbreak for Red Bull! And some big big points in the bag for Mercedes. Lewis collects even when its not a good day, and that's what makes him so formidable over a season.

And we are in for an epic season, aren't we?? Both Bulls and the Merc will be back soon!

[MotoBlip]

Excellent race and thoroughly enjoyable. Happy for Ferrari, this being their first victory since 2019. They definitely have a mean driver lineup and powertrain.

For Sir Lewis Hamilton, the luck never seems to run out . He fetches a podium even with a rather vapid effort.

Red Bull's late double retirement was very disheartening, hope they bounce back stronger.

[aim120]

Max was whining more then last year on the radio and this is the first race.
Redbull power train both the teams where faster on straights by as much as 10km/hr. They probably ran it at a higher power setting.

E10 fuel also burns hotter.

Mercedes where loosing a second a lap but that was when mercedes was on the hard and the Ferraris and Max on soft in the first stint.
When mercedes went to medium they where still loosing time but not as high as the 1 second a lap.

Last year, in Bahrain qualifying Max was 0.4 of a sec ahead of Mercedes. This year Mercedes in qualifying was nearly 0.7sec behind compared to Ferrari. So lot of catching up to do.

[jpcoolguy]

Quoting Sainz after post race: Ferrari are back, and Ferrari are properly back !!!

Charles drove beautifully even under the pressure from Max. Max has met his match (in terms of aggression) in Charles and what a racing between the two after 1st round of pitstops. How lucky could Hamilton get, I mean these points will come in handy once Mercedes resolved their porpoising issues and the double DNF for Redbull may come back to haunt them later.

That Ferrari PU seems perfect - whenever Perez close-in on Sainz, he could just give a little push and raise more than half a second gap to Perez.

Kevin is such a lucky charm for Haas, from 0 points in a full season to 10 points in one race !

Good start to the new era and hope Ferrari pulls this season off, too early, but yeah hope is eternal. Forza Ferrari !

[ninjatalli]

Initial reports suggest Red Bull cars had a fuel intake issue with the fuel supply stopping to both car engines causing the stoppage. Its always a disappointment when car problems direct the results (at least 2nd, 3rd and following positions in this race) rather than actual driving. Would have been fun to see the minister of defense defending his 3rd position against Hamilton till the end of the race.

Kudos to the Ferrari team on getting the complete win (pole, 1-2, fastest lap).

[motorworks]

Now that’s the Ferrari we all know! Fantastic effort from the team and the drivers! Have been waiting and waiting since 2007-08 era for Ferrari to have a proper race winning car! Charles Leclerc, well what a drive! He was mature, calm and was also aggressive when needed, especially with Max. I think all drivers in the grid are a bit overawed by Lewis and Max, considering what they have done last year, so it’s sort of a bit psychological to give into one of these guys, but Leclerc didn’t let all this play in his mind. He was clever, let max overtake him and got him back twice in two laps. And his restart was fantastic as well. Sainz was a bit off the pace, but he delivered nevertheless, I expect him to be much more competitive in the upcoming races.

More than the win or the 1-2, I’m really happy that Ferrari have a proper competitive car for the season, that’s a good sign. And also they have sort of got the engine up to the levels of Mercedes and
Honda. Since there is no change to regulations for the next 4 years, it was imperative that Ferrari get this right.

[callmeneo]

Great start to the season. The safety car definitely did spice up things by bunching them all together and giving the laggards a chance to get into the points bracket.

Before the safety car , it was sad to see Hamilton driving alone on the circuit (so far from both the car ahead and behind ).

I thought Perez would be at least able to push to the finish as there was just a lap remaining. Alas luck and the car gave up .

[deetjohn]

Some titbits from the weekend action!

The issue with the Red Bulls was the fuel pump, it went kaput when the fuel level went low. The team couldn't catch this earlier as all their test runs were with higher fuel loads. Qualifying also didn't help as the high speed runs weren't sustained. This looks to be a function of the E10 fuel. God save our petrol engines when we get E20 here. Gasly retired with an entirely different issue.

Did anyone notice that Liberty has introduced fake crowd noise into the telecast? And its pathetic! You can catch it during the epic dual between Max & Charles, video below.

You can also catch the same when Perez lost the drive and let Mercedes through. And Croft from Sky had the gall to say the huge cheers is because Lewis got a load of fans on this side of the globe! LOL

But what I couldn't digest was how he mocked Charles' engineer when he spoke in English. That was pitiful mimicry not expected from a giant media house! The commentary was pathetic yesterday. It will be great if we could get an option to have only the noise from the cars with just the stats/ graphics on screen. Any luck Hot Star??

Talking about graphics, it was going bonkers at times. I recall qualifying when they completely messed up the purple sectors for many drivers. Can they not test these things properly??

Red Bulls got a clear advantage on single lap pace. It was evident on Saturday and also during the out laps from Max yesterday. The undercut almost worked. But Ferrari got a good car on Sunday. Have to see how the fuel pump issue affects the single lap pace though!

Among other things, I am also loving the very efficient Ferrari pit stops. It is certainly not easy with these big heavy wheels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRBd...annel=FORMULA1

Mercedes was stronger in the race and I expect them claw it all back bit by bit. Can't wait for next weekend!

Edit:

Originally Posted by Emvi

Is the racetrack so bumpy!?

Yes, Bahrain is bumpy. It also doesn't help that the cars are much stiffer and running closer to the ground this year due to the aero changes.

Originally Posted by callmeneo

I thought Sainz would be at least able to push to the finish as there was just a lap remaining. Alas luck and the car gave up .

Sergio!

[AutoConsultant]

What a start to the season! Good to see 2 teams capable of competing against each other at the top (although Ferrari looked a tad bit better).

Mercs being 0.5-1 sec slower that the top 2 cars just makes this season even better because frankly Merc has the most experience and capability to turn this around. They will be competing for wins by race 4 or 5 imo.

Strangely all Merc PU cars were struggling although Toto said that it’s not majorly about the PU. Sad to see McLaren lingering at the back.

K-Mag and Bottas were the stars! Also happy for Zhou, scoring points in his first outing. We are not going to see paid drivers coming into F1, all we can hope is that they are decent enough to compete and he showed that. Strong performance by Alpines as well after not so good testing for them.

It’s a long season, hoping for more such twist and turns!