FINISHING STRAIGHT
F1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 1
1 Red Bull dominant as reliability sidelines Ferrari
For those hoping Red Bull’s dominance might slip as a consequence of cost-cap penalties and other teams making competitive leaps over the winter, the Bahrain GP served as an abrupt reality check.
“Red Bull has got this championship sewn up,” lamented Mercedes’ George Russell. “I don’t think anyone is going to be fighting with them this year. I expect they should win every single race this season. That is my bet.”
Is this an unduly pessimistic verdict? Certainly Max Verstappen had nobody to trouble him for vast swathes of the race and was able to focus on hitting his target laptimes to maintain optimal tyre performance, finishing just under 12s clear of teammate Sergio Pérez. It would only have been closer if Checo hadn’t flunked his start from second on the grid, falling behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari during the opening stint… as Max romped away from pole, pulling out a gap by around half a second per lap.
Leclerc had only done one flying lap in Q3 to reserve a new set of soft tyres for the opening stint and this helped his assault on Pérez, but what happened after the first set of pitstops would
