Lewis Hamilton has won the Bahrain Grand Prix after a very close battle with Max Verstappen in the closing stages of the race. Verstappen finished furiously in second after having to give up first place for exceeding track limits. Bottas completed the podium for Mercedes.
Just shows you how much downforce they took from all the cars with the reg changes for this season.
the tyres play a big role. teams have spent considerable effort to bring downforce back. seems like the tyres, even while working well, aren't as fast as previous generation.
Makes it comical when we hear Pirelli claiming to have brought a superior product? In which way? Heavier, slower tires are somehow better because you can run 2 psi less?
With the midfield having closed up to the lead pack a bit this year, it will be interesting to see whether the race leaders (tomorrow = Verstappen) are going to be able to build big enough leads that they can come out of the pits in clean air after the first stop.
If this year's leaders constantly emerge in traffic after the first stop, we're going to see some action.
Guys. It does not look good for the season if Mercedes does unlock the car.
RedBull is fast everywhere.
If there is a disparity then it will be up to Hamilton and Bottas to drive superbly to overcome the car deficit, just as it was up to Verstappen and Albon to do this in the 2020 season. Time to see the special driver stuff from the Mercedes chaps.
The Merc chaps won't exactly have to do much to match what the RBR boys did in 2020. MV33 only won two races and finished well over 120 points behind hamilton. In no way did he overcome any car deficit, and Albon simply underdelivered. MV tried his best and had a good showing, but at no point did he ever trouble the eventual WDC. He even lost out to the clear #2 in Bottas.
Just for reference.
🤭 wrote:
“Being the 'most successful statistically' has nothing to do with being the 'best'. neither when it comes to the cars, nor when it comes to the drivers” 😂
Just shows you how much downforce they took from all the cars with the reg changes for this season.
Plus no party modes, and components need to last even longer this year.
I.E., F1 a little bet less F1, yet again.
If they keep going, it will be Indycar is no time at all!
I honestly think I'm going to stop watching in a few years. F1 has lost all it's mystique in the rush to pull in as many bottom barrel fans as possible.
Interesting race coming up. Hard to properly predict due this being the first race. Looks as if Red Bull has the better race pace though, and might be very hard to stop. What Mercedes has going for them is that they have isolated Verstappen at the start. Even if Mercedes doesn't get the jump on Verstappen at the start, they might have the option to do things differently in the race, if race pace isn't up to par. Hamilton seems to be optimistic about their chances, so it might be close.
If it turns out that Perez struggles in traffic and isn't within the Mercedes window and thus isolate Verstappen against the Mercs throughout the race, I hope for Perez's sake that Verstappen managed to win the race anyway. Because if Mercedes wins this on an alternative strategy, then the debate will already start about the importance of the 2nd car being there or thereabouts. And that would only highten the demand on Perez to find his feet sooner rather than later with the new car.
In terms of the midfield, McLaren and Ferrari primarily get my interest. How competitive can they be during the race? Despite Leclerc heroics and the midfield looking closer to the top guys this season, I'm expecting the front three to be comfortably ahead. But within that midfield battle, anyone can come out on top.
We do also have a few names out of 'place'. Vettel, Ocon, Perez and probably also Tsunoda. Will be interesting to see who makes the furthers progress.
Look out for Stroll and Giovinazzi at the start. They tend to start very well. Perez will be desperate to make a good start, and with Giovinazzi right behind him, he might find himself looking to defend places rather than gaining one. I think cooler heads will prevail at the start, unless your name is Mazepin, who might try and snatch a few places at the start. Hopefully cleanly.
I think this will be a good one. I'm looking forward to this.
What a fabulous lap by Verstappen .. almost perfect and class of his own. His teammates are struggling to cope up with his talent.
Thats what happens when you make a car for just 1 person. This is now the 3rd teammate who can get nowhere near him. I think Verstappen and RedBull need to remember this when they start bitching that Verstappen is getting mugged by a double team all the time. You either make compromises so both can drive it or you don’t. RedBull clearly don’t.
Look at Mercedes as an example they clearly made a car that both Rosberg and Hamilton could drive. Then they did it again with Bottas and Hamilton. I have no doubt if they wanted to they could make a car that Hamilton could drive like a comfy slipper but that then means Bottas struggles.
it's a funny situation to term max's lap as a great lap. last year, with a difficult car and with less powerful engine, he was over 1.5 seconds faster. compared to that, this is like trundling around. relative positioning is what matters and to that extent, it was a great lap. credit to him.
in 2016, drivers and fans wanted faster cars that test the driver's physical capabilities and the regulations were revised to add like over 3 seconds to the car. nobody wanted grandma driving. f1 was happy with the changes and cars were really fast and got faster in the next few years. fast forward to 2021, pirelli wasn't upto the mark and f1 decided to help them and has taken f1 back to 2016 levels of speed with such small changes in regulations. billions of dollars spent on cars and engines have been reduced to knot to help one single parameter. f1 managers are funny crop indeed.
It's very easy to get carried away with Redbull doing so well until now and qualifying 0.4 ahead, but some realism is needed to avoid total disappointment.
- Mercedes have engine derate issues they need to fix
- Mercedes clearly have handling/setup issues they also need to fix
- The gap was 0.4, but Hamilton messed up the middle sector so it would have probably been more like 0.2 ahead.
That gap against a car which is struggling with both its handling and engine is nothing to get excited about. The opposite in fact because once those two are sorted we are not going to be talking the odd tenth, it's likely half a second plus.
Until those things are sorted Max needs to take advantage (so far he is). My gut instinct though is he will not win today and this will be down to reliability or a driver mistake. Despite not needing to push in qualifying he still managed to nearly take the floor off.
With the midfield having closed up to the lead pack a bit this year, it will be interesting to see whether the race leaders (tomorrow = Verstappen) are going to be able to build big enough leads that they can come out of the pits in clean air after the first stop.
If this year's leaders constantly emerge in traffic after the first stop, we're going to see some action.
Unfortunately with all those midfield cars starting on the soft tyre, it means they will be well out of the picture when it comes to the top 3 pitting. Only a bad timed safety car will upset that.
GoLandoGo
Lewis v2.0
King George has arrived.
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