Verstappen Wins in Bahrain

Max Verstappen managed to convert his pole position into his 55th career race win. He was stood on the podium with his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, and his ex-teammate at Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz.

All 20 drivers started on the soft compound tyre. Going into Turn 1, Hülkenberg and Stroll came into contact, the Canadian being spun around on the apex. The rest of the field got away cleanly, with Verstappen holding his lead. Over the 57 laps, Verstappen led the pack from lights out to the chequered flag. The flying Dutchman in his Red Bull was so quick in fact, he had already managed to pull out a gap of over 1.5 seconds by the end of lap 2.

It didn’t take long for the battles for the remaining two steps of the podium to begin. George Russell overtook Charles Leclerc for P2, and soon after, Perez made his way past the Monegasque too. That was only the start of the troubles for Leclerc who suffered from brake problems for almost the whole of the race. By lap 10, Verstappen had a 10 second gap to the driver in second place.

Carlos Sainz was making moves during the race. Sainz, who lost his Ferrari seat to Hamilton for the 2025 season, showed just how much of a talented driver he is. He made a move on his Ferrari teammate, Leclerc, down into Turn 1, and then set his sights on the cars in front of him, hoping he could end up on the podium. And that he did! It was P3 for the Spaniard – which is incredibly important for him as he needs to prove himself this season. That wasn’t the only move Sainz made during the day, however, with a few more which meant he displayed a very impressive drive.

The only yellow flag of the race came out for Logan Sargeant. He stopped in Sector One on lap 10. However, he managed to get back on track and there was no need for a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) or a full Safety Car.

Sargeant was not the only one who had troubles though. As mentioned previously, Leclerc suffered from brake problems during the race. The two Mercedes drivers also struggled. It was reported that Lewis Hamilton’s seat was broken, and George Russell was told to lift and coast. Alexander Albon also had trouble with his new Williams steering wheel, along with engine issues.

Whilst Ferrari managed to have the fastest pit-stop of the Bahrain GP, Valtteri Bottas in his new Sauber had the slowest stop. The slow stop lasted 52.4 seconds – which is a lot shorter than his 2021 Monaco Grand Prix pit-stop which lasted 43 hours! The second round of pit-stops took place and every driver went onto the hard compound tyres except from the two Red Bulls who went onto softs.

The last few laps of the race was mainly focussed on the battle for 12th place. Magnussen led the trio, with Ricciardo and Tsunoda following behind. Racing Bulls’ team orders allowed Ricciardo to go past Tsunoda in an aim to close the gap to the Haas driver. Magnussen, however, held onto 12th place – with an upset Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda being stuck behind him.

The final classification was as follows:

Verstappen (Fastest Lap)

Perez

Sainz (Driver of the Day)

Leclerc

Russell

Norris

Hamilton

Piastri

Alonso

Stroll

Zhou

Magnussen

Ricciardo

Tsunoda

Albon

Hülkenberg

Ocon

Gasly

Bottas

Sargeant

Here is what Verstappen said about his first win of his 2024 title campaign: “It’s unbelievable. I think today went even better than expected. I think the car was really nice to drive, on every [tyre] compound I think we had a lot of pace. It was just super enjoyable to drive today, we really stayed out of trouble and it’s a great start to the year – it couldn’t have been better.”

Next week, F1 moves to Saudi Arabia for the second round of the 2024 season. Who do you think will perform well there?