2024 Bahrain GP: Post Race Analysis

The start to another Formula 1 season.... and it's same old same old already. Sadly passing looks even harder this year. The positives we saw at the beginning of 2022 appear to gone already.

Red Bull unsurprisingly have started with the best car. Their margin to the next best appear bigger than it was at the end of 2023. This means Max Verstappen is pretty much unbeatable with a clean race. Perez drove his car up quite easily to secure a 1-2.

Ferrari may or may not have the 2nd best car. Sainz did what Sainz does, and that's get a result. Good race pace, stayed out of trouble, was clean against his teammate. Deserving podium. Sad to see a lack of Ferrari support when he got out of the car though. Leclerc, kind of the same story for him too. Bad luck I guess once again, but it does mean as usual he fell backwards from a strong grid position.

Mercedes likely a lot better than they showed. George Russell had the better of Lewis it seemed, so he can get some confidence from that. He admitted the team made the mistake of being too aggressive on cooling. However most Mercedes PU cars were struggling with heat. Lewis was strong in the race and there is no reason to suspect he won't be one of the guys to watch behind Max this season.

McLaren don't seem to be at the same level as Ferrari or Mercedes. Lando still has an edge over Piastri, but Oscar has improved a lot in his race management.

Aston Martin 5th best as expected. Alonso usually excels in the race, though it seemed his car and race fell away from him as the race went on. On the other hand the race really fell into place for Stroll. With AMR's inability to develop and how tight the top teams are, podiums could be a miracle this season.

Sauber have made a nice improvement over a dismal 2023. Zhou continues to work hard and got another result over his teammate. However Bottas has the worst luck for wheel nut issues. 52 second pitstop, ouch.

Haas didn't completely fall off a cliff after 10 laps. Consider that a successful winter. Kmag didn't look overly impressive this weekend, but was up there at the front of the bad cars. Hulkenberg ruined his own race in the first corner by crashing into Stroll.

Visa RB Alpha Cash Toro Rosso perhaps not as good as predicted. Points may have been unrealistic, except Stroll managed to come from the back and beat them quite easily. Terrible team management with the drivers. The late driver swap call while Yuki was 0.5 seconds behind the Haas was silly. The decision to even do a drivers swap over 12th and 13th place is hardly worth it anyways. So now they have 2 furious drivers after 1 race to battle over something that had no reward.

Williams shockingly one of the worst cars once again. Didn't help they struggled with overheating. Was fascinating watching Albon's steering wheel scream at him to cool the car and see how he managed that. I don't think there was even a replay of what happened to Logan.

Alpine have some work to do. The only team that slowed down compared to last year. Yikes. Rumors of very low power compared the rest. The handling, the brakes, the driveability. All bad. They have the resources, but if their PU is 30-50 hp down, they are in for a tough year.

Driver of the Day: Max Verstappen. When you can go 1.4 seconds faster for fastest lap with 20 laps of fuel still in the car with ease. Finish over 20 seconds on your teammate. Zero tire wear, super consistent. It's a perfect drive. Great car or not, he alone is next level. Honorable mention to Carlos Sainz for a good drive and a good effort. Also to Lance Stroll. Dead last after lap one and managed to get 10th. Arguably a more impressive race performance than Alonso.