Rain was predicted in the desert but it only seemed to fall on Charles Leclerc this weekend.
In the words of Owen Wilson, ‘wow.’ Wow indeed, where do we start with that absolute barnstormer of a race in Bahrain, round two of the 2019 Formula One World Championship.
Off the back of Australia the biggest question was where on earth has that Ferrari pace gone? By Friday evening they had certainly found it again, topping both sessions, and all sessions on the Saturday. Championship back on then. Leclerc also looked like he found his grove in his new scarlet Ferrari, topping 2 of the practice sessions and taking an emphatic pole position 3 tenths of his team mate, who just pipped the Mercedes of Hamilton. Leclerc had slotted himself in the history books next to two F1 greats in Vettel and Alonso by becoming the 2nd youngest polesitter in the process. But could he carry this pace over to Sunday?
A collective sigh was let out by the F1 world by turn 1. Leclerc beaten cleanly off the line by Vettel, while the Mercedes of Hamilton snapped at the Monegasque’s rear, eventually passing him for a Vettel, Hamilton, Leclerc order by the end of lap 1. Surely this was any chance of the race win gone? No! All of a sudden it was like a switch was flicked and suddenly Leclerc found his way back to Hamilton, passing him, before in no time at all sailing up to the back of Vettel and passing him. He didn’t stop there either, he continued this pace until he had a clear lead, even after both rounds of pit stops. He had not put a foot wrong. But the more the race went on, the more and more you just felt it was too good to be true. Have we finally found the man to end Hamilton’s supreme reign? It would certainly be ironic if it was the desert where Hamilton’s reign over F1 began to falter, but for just this time irony was overrated and the racing gods said bye to Leclerc’s MGU-H leaving him 160 horsepower down for just under 20 laps of the race left. Game over. He had not put a foot wrong, whilst under so much pressure too, but as Leclerc himself said, “that’s just motorsport sometimes.” I will always believe that luck balances itself out eventually, and Leclerc is certainly indebted after today. There’s still 19 rounds to go, plenty of points to receive. Besides we all saw Hamilton’s comeback last year after not winning until Baku.
Speaking of Mercedes, they should their almost bulletproof nature this weekend. Whilst they weren’t really on the pace all weekend, what they had, they held and that meant inheriting from any Ferrari cock-ups, which they certainly doubled down on, gaining from a pirouetting Vettel and a sick motor on Leclerc. Another crucial one-two at a point in the season where they don’t appear to have the ultimate pace could be crucial for both championships. Hamilton reminded us this weekend why he’s a five-time World Champ, convincingly beating the bearded Bottas who has been reminded how much hard work it is to beat Lewis as a team mate. Much work still lies ahead of the Finn and his German team.
It was another tough weekend for Gasly who didn’t make it to Q3 again and whilst he did put his first points on the board, wasn’t exactly sailing to the front, which you’d expect in that car and his incredible performance in the junior car last year. Whilst we weren’t expecting him to be outperforming Verstappen at this stage of the season, you’d expect it A) to be a helluva a lot closer than it is now and B) Gasly to put in a convincing race in one of his favoured hunting grounds of Bahrain. Yes the Frenchman has said the car is more difficult to drive compared to the Toro Rosso, but the car is still clearly 3rd fastest on the grid and despite the midfield bunching up more and being more on the pace, he should still be making his way to at least P6. You could argue that Pierre was under pressure after binning it a couple of times in testing, but he’s got to start putting some quality performances soon. Really, he’s quite lucky there’s not a Verstappen, a Sainz or a Vettel waiting in the wings in the Toro Rosso because then he would really look out of place in the Red Bull. It’s only round 2, and I still rate Gasly and I doubt Red Bull will axe him, he’s just too good of a driver to struggle much longer, but the pressure has certainly but put up a notch.
Vettel is almost in the reverse situation as Gasly. He’s under immense pressure already after bottling a championship last year and he’s now being undermined by his fresh faced team mate. He needs to put in the usual Vettel-esque performances and get his foot into the championship battle now. Maybe get rid of that tasche while he’s at it, ugh even the thought of it! Eww.
Where do we start with Renault? The lack of super duper quick laps or hint of a glory run in testing was seen, myself included, as a confidence thing; pulling a Mercedes as it were. A mixture of good fortune and good racing lead to a points finish in Australia. But mistakes meant Hulkenberg was out in Q1 and Ricciardo still not in the grove meant a Q2 knockout for him. They certainly pulled it around in the race, showing good pace with Hulkenberg being a shoe in for P6 and Ricciardo leading at one point, and looking good for points thanks to a one-stop strategy. But in the most bizarre double retirement, both exited the race at exactly the same corner of the same lap, but for completely different reasons, both mechanical. Both of them power unit failures, which added to Sainz’s retirement last time out has to be a concern for reliability. The power seems to be good enough, whilst not leading, but the reliability seems to be the worst out of the four manufacturers. That being said, Renault seem to be near the top of the midfield but not the top. It could be Haas at the moment, but that’s debatable after this weekend, I don’t know if the strategy played a part in Magnussen’s poor race, if someone could tell me that’d be great.
Alfa are also a bit disappointing at the moment, but it’s still only two races in and the midfield is incredibly tight. Alfa just don’t look as convincing as testing showed. They still may be able to out-develop and make a late charge for best of the rest like they did last year. Kimi drove a great race to finish P7 after struggling early on if my memory serves me well. Solid points is more than good enough for them at this stage. If Giovinazzi can keep his head down for a clean weekend that would also be great for the Italian/Swiss outfit.
If Driver of the Day was Leclerc, rightly awarded with 50% of the vote may I add, 2nd best Driver of the Day would have to be Lando Norris. A stellar drive after a little off at the beginning but picked all of the midfield off apart from Hulkenberg, who he was 2-3 seconds off most of the race. Managed to keep behind a quicker Kimi for the last 10 laps or so whilst being under DRS bombardment too. A little good fortune for the P6, but P7 was a great drive all the same. He arguably would’ve been beaten from Sainz who was on the receiving end of a brash Verstappen who ended Sainz’s race as soon as the Spaniard inherited P5 off the Dutchman. I’d like to see the onboards before I judge if it were a racing incident though. If not for the Safety Car at the end and contact with Verstappen, Sainz certainly would’ve been in with a shout of a podium, which shows how much work has been done by the Woking team. They’ve made the biggest performance gain on the grid, and should certainly have another 10 or so points on the board, if not for misfortune. We’ll see if it’s kept up all season, but I did think that many predictions for McLaren were a little harsh compared to what testing showed. They and Haas were probably tied for best of the rest this weekend. Signs of encouragement to say the least.
A thrilling race all in all, I don’t think my heart dropped below 100bpm until after the first pit stops, even that was short lived before the crescendo that we had to end just before the banana cars peeled off to one side, bringing out the safety car. Maybe we should slightly shorten a DRS zone for next year, but even then the third DRS zone wasn’t as ridiculous as we thought, plus it showed what a great corner turn 4 is for racing. Nonetheless 2019 regulations are proving to work well so far, and at this rate we’ll be sad to see them only last for 2 seasons. I sit here writing this thinking what could’ve been for Leclerc and Sainz, but mainly saddened that we have to wait another 2 weeks for our dosage of F1.
George Talks 