Max Verstappen won the first round of the Formula 1 World Championship season in Bahrain

Three-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen made his strongest bid to win a fourth consecutive title on Saturday. At the Bahrain Grand Prix that opened the new season, Verstappen completed the so-called Grand Slam: he won the race, leading from start to finish, was first in qualifying and set the fastest lap. The second, with a huge gap from the winner, was another Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez, which only confirms that the technical superiority of the “bulls” over their competitors has not gone away during the off-season. Third place went to Ferrari representative Carlos Sainz.

Last year’s Formula 1 season was perhaps the most uninteresting in history. Of the 22 races that took place, 21 were won by Red Bull drivers. Of these, only two are Sergio Perez. The rest were left to Max Verstappen, whose inevitability of victory in the championship became obvious after the first third. It is clear that neither the majority of fans nor the owners of the series themselves would like a repeat of last year’s history. But it seems there is still no hope that anyone will stop Verstappen.

But there were still some hints that this time it might turn out a little differently, that there wouldn’t be the same depressing dominance of one team. In Bahrain, during the training sessions, the Mercedes drivers suddenly showed their former agility, which immediately gave rise to talk that Toto Wolf’s team had found the right path. Actually, Wolf himself exuded optimism, saying that the car had turned out well, and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, for whom this season will be his last at Mercedes (from 2025 he will drive for Ferrari), said that the “factory” was finally gave me a car with which to be competitive. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz from Ferrari also looked very good.

In general, there were hopes for an interesting race. But not for long.

Already in qualifying, Max Verstappen showed that he still has no equal. Yes, he didn’t win it by a crushing margin, but most importantly, he won. And as soon as the race began, the Dutchman, in his usual manner, simply drove away from his pursuers. Leclerc, who started second, didn’t even really try to keep up with the leader’s pace. However, even if he tried to do this, he still would not be able to, because his car soon began to show problems with handling (in the end, only fourth place).

Well, Verstappen kept leaving and leaving until he completely disappeared from view and ceased to be a factor that other drivers should have taken into account at all. Simply because the Dutchman was racing in his own league, solving his own problems, leaving all this fuss in the confrontation for places from second and below to others. But even here, nothing could be done about the technical superiority of the Red Bull cars. The second number of the Bulls, Sergio Perez, after a not very successful qualification (starting from fifth place), slowly caught the pace and somehow routinely got into second place. At Ferrari, whose leader, due to the problems that plagued Leclerc, was Sainz (Hamilton comes to the Scuderia in place of the Spaniard), they tried, it must be admitted, to resist this. It should also be noted that the red cars this year really turned out better than last year.

In 2023, Ferrari could, in principle, go very fast, at times even at the level of Red Bull. But not for long, because the cars simply ate rubber. This problem did not exist in Bahrain.

Moreover, Sainz even tried to overtake Perez due to a different tactic on the tires. But completely without success. It’s trivial because at race pace Red Bull is still much faster than its competitors. After all, even Perez, who is not the fastest by nature, brought Sainz more than two and a half seconds. This despite the fact that in the end he didn’t really attack. And Verstappen was more than 22 seconds ahead of Perez, and more than 25 seconds ahead of Sainz. What is this if not a rout and a great start to the year for Red Bull? By the way, a year ago the “bulls” also started the championship with a winning double.

Let us add that the Banhrain victory was already the 114th in the 20-year history of Red Bull. The much older Williams team won the same number of races (the Bulls needed 370 races to win 114, Williams 802). In terms of the total number of victories, Red Bull and Williams share fourth place. Only Mercedes (125 Grand Prix in 295 races), McLaren (183/946) and Ferrari (243/1074) have won more often.

For Verstappen personally, this was his 55th victory. Only Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91) have more. If things continue to go the same way, then by the end of the season the Dutchman will be able to significantly reduce the gap with the two seven-time world champions.

Arnold Kabanov