Max Verstappen won the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix by a whooping 22 second margin to Sergio Perez. In 2023, a season he absolutely dominated, his victory margin in Bahrain was only 11 seconds. Could this be a sign for a long and boring season ahead?
Let's add to the doomsday prediction with this stat - for the first time ever in Formula 1 history there was no retirement at the opening race of the season! 
In this episode of the Inside Line F1 Podcast, Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah look at some of the off-beat stories from the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix. Why? Because a lot of the stories and narratives seem like just a continuation from 2023.
Off-beat stories that you need to know of - Williams' steering dashboard issues, Mercedes' cooling configuration going all wrong + Lewis Hamilton's broken seat, Carlos Sainz wanting a car he could overtake with, Charles Leclerc's imbalanced brake temperatures, Aston Martin's unrealistically large gap to the top-4 and of course, the silly situation between Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
Max Verstappen dominating, everyone else chasing yada yada. But did the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix reveal a pecking order? Yes, it did so. But do we expect the pecking order to remain unchanged in 2024? Oh, absolutely not.
Tune in!
(Season 2024, Episode 09)

Follow our hosts on Twitter: Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah
Image courtesy: Red Bull Content Pool