F1 2022: Bahrain
Well, the season is underway. What a weekend! There were certainly a few surprises:
Leclerc taking pole for the first time since 2019 was the shift we needed to start to shake things up a bit. Both Mercedes performed poorly: in fact, Bottas in his new Alfa Romeo out-qualified his Mercedes replacement George Russell which was great. The Red Bulls were up there challenging the new, pacey Ferrari which was to be expected based on their performance in pre-season testing. The driver who made many people really surprised was Kevin Magnussen. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t even a reserve driver, never mind on the starting grid. Dumped by Haas F1 after the 2020 season and replaced by Nikita Mazepin and his family’s cash, Magnussen disappeared off the radar a bit for a year and a half. However, for obvious reasons linked to Mazepin’s Russian heritage, he was dropped and Magnussen was the comeback kid. During the 2021 season, the Haas cars regularly held 19th and 20th - out of 20 cars. This Saturday in Bahrain, Magnussen qualified 7th. Seventh.. Ahead of one of the Mercedes. Absolutely unbelievable.
In the race, Leclerc had a solid drive. He began to stretch his lead early on and it wasn’t until after the first round of pit stops that Verstappen was really battling for the lead. Verstappen’s battle never really materialised and the Ferrari was clearly carrying more speed. There was some dubiety surrounding pit stop strategy options: would it be a two-stop, or maybe even a three-stop? The new cars weren’t exposed to full race runs during testing, and the real performance level of the tyres was still unknown. Most drivers ended up opting for a three-stop, usually in the range of two to three seconds. The new wheels weigh a fair bit more than those in previous seasons, so mechanics may take a while to adjust and return to the low two-second, or perhaps even sub two-second, pit stops once more.
It looked like we may be finishing with all 20 cars until Gasly suddenly sprung out of his burning AlphaTauri, bringing out the safety car. It was at this point that many of the drivers took their final pit stop, to try to finish the race on fresh rubber. Verstappen had taken his third pit stop just prior to the safety car, and was complaining of a steering issue, presumably a result of the tyre changes. Once the hazard was cleared and racing was back underway, Leclerc - who was still leading - broke away from the pack immediately with the dream restart. Verstappen quickly began to struggle, and had additional complaints about a possible battery problem. He lasted all of one lap after the restart, limping back to the pits to retire the car. The retirement promoted Sainz into P2 and Perez into P3, so Ferrari looked like a certain one-two, with Red Bull scraping 3rd place and a semi-decent start to their campaign. That was until Perez suddenly lost power and spun the car, completely unable to restart it. Unbelievably, it was a double DNF for Red Bull - the second Red Bull retirement promoting Hamilton - who had the most average race ever - into the final podium position.
Once we had a moment to breathe and have a look at the standings after the late drama, it transpired that things weren’t just out of the ordinary at the top of the standings: Magnussen (remember him?) had secured 5th place - best of the rest after the two Ferraris and two Mercedes, Bottas was right behind him contributing to a double points finish for Alfa Romeo, Zhou scoring points on his debut. The remaining points positions were taken by Ocon, Tsunoda and Alonso who all ran good races. Mick Schumacher was unlucky to finish 11th, in what would have been a truly mad start for Haas. As it is, they are third in the constructors championship at the moment, after Ferrari and Mercedes..
Shall we do it all again in 7 days’ time?
