The 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix is done and dusted. We came into the weekend with a clean slate across the board, a lot of questions left to be answered, and an overwhelming sense of excitement for all that was to come. Expectations were leashed as best as possible as the whispers of a competitive order appeared out of the haze of testing and free practice. “Just you wait, sunshine” we thought, desperately holding on to the hope of a competitive season.

In Qualifying we saw the field spread in Q1 covered by a mere second! And while Max Verstappen ultimately came out on top, the margins were close. With the fastest lap time of the hour being posted by Charles Leclerc in Q2.

All throughout testing we heard teams up and down the pitlane tout their race pace. Everyone, except Alpine, seemed happy with their progress over the winter. So we held our breath, Ferrari’s in the fight we thought, Mercedes’ in the fight.

On Saturday, the five lights illuminated in Bahrain and went out… And for the first time in 2024, we went racing. Here’s how it went.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Max Verstappen notoriously has a direct communication style, it should come to no surprise then that a reality check was quickly and harshly delivered. He pulled a 1 second gap before DRS was enabled (lap 2), and by lap 7 he was over 5 seconds clear of the next car. The Red Bull seems to have maintained the large pace advantage from 2023 even with the change in car concept. While disappointing for us, it’s incredibly impressive from a technical view point and a job well done to the team. Take your flowers Red Bull, we’ll take our tissues.

And so we cast our eyes down to P2 and beyond.

Checo Et al.

While Max is a million miles away, Ferrari can be heartened by the gap to Checo. Carlos managed to keep up with him in the last stint and there didn’t seem to be any signs of the Ferrari tire degradation issue. The gap at the end of the race was a respectable 2.6 seconds to Checo vs the disrespectful 24 seconds to Max. So the fight for P2 in both championships is pretty much on.

Although, according to Helmut Marko Checo wasn’t pushing and had more pace in hand. But there wasn’t any need for him to push since he had Sainz under control and no real chance of catching up to Max. So it’s entirely possible that the fight for P2 is also not on. So maybe cast your eyes down to P3 and beyond.

It’s Broken!

While Ferrari’s pace may be pointing in the right direction, Leclerc’s car under braking wasn’t. Right from the start of the Grand Prix he started experiencing brake issues that continued through to the end of the race. But he wasn’t the only one that was having issues. Mercedes was having an overheating issue with their power unit that hindered their performance. And Lewis’s seat was apparently broken.

Due to their woes, we actually can’t gauge Mercedes’ true performance and their place in relation to Ferrari. They seem to be on equal footing with McLaren in race pace and slightly behind Ferrari, but since they were lifting and coasting to manage the PU issue we can’t read too much into their performance.

Williams was also having issues with overheating, at some point in the GP we could see Alex Albon’s steering dash read “Car Too Hot”. There was something comical about how blunt of a statement that is to receive from a car. I expected it to be less on the nose.

Williams also had issues with their steering wheel. Logan’s off was a result of the steering issue and had to get the steering wheel swapped during his pitstop, while Alex was heard on the radio complaining about the steering as well.

Lastly, there was poor Valtteri just sitting in the pits for 52 seconds probably getting flashbacks of Monaco 2021.

Shockingly despite all of the issues faced across the field, there were no retirements from the race.

A Word To Yuki

Yelling on the radio is fine. There’s a lot of adrenaline and emotions are high in a race. He feels like the team call is the wrong one? understandable. That being said, dive bombing his teammate in the cool down lap is too much. It’s petulant, it’s childish, it’s unproductive. It also doesn’t make sense for him to take out his frustration on Daniel as he wasn’t the one making the call to swap positions. A scenario that, according to Daniel, was discussed beforehand since the team knew there might be a pace differential at the end due to different tire strategies. Not to mention this is for 13th place. He can feel aggrieved by the team’s call, but lashing out in that manner is a bad look. I can’t see any teams seeing that behavior and thinking “just what I want in a driver”.

In Other News..

Haas is not as bad as we all thought they’d be. They didn’t drop like a stone and need to make 10 pit stops due to extreme tire wear. Given how abrasive the Bahrain circuit is, Haas should be celebrating. Couple that with Nico’s qualifying being top 10, they seem to have fixed their tire wear issue without compromising their one-lap pace.

Alpine is the new Haas. If it wasn’t for the issues that Logan and Valtteri had, they’d be 19th and 20th on merit. It’s a shocking feat to accomplish. Did no one tell Alpine the winter break was for development and not a vacation?

RB isn’t going to be troubling the top 5 anytime soon. I think they’re just about where we left them at the end of 2023. Their closest competitors are probably still Williams and Sauber. There was a lot of speculation about them showing up with an RB19 clone, but it looks like Zak Brown can put his pitchforks away for now.

Apart from the 52 second pit stop, Sauber actually had a quietly good race from Zhou. They didn’t have pace in qualifying but in the race Zhou was in the points for most of it. I think that lower mid-field with Sauber v Williams v RB will have a tight battle for P6 in the constructors. But points will be hard to get by if the top 10 is locked out by the top 5 teams.

The Verdict

Maybe it was my own fault coming into the weekend with excitement for the new season, but this was a very underwhelming Grand Prix. If anything, it’s killed my enthusiasm for the rest of the season. There wasn’t any unexpected outcomes. There really wasn’t any battling, apart from drivers vs. their own machines and Yuki vs. the RB pit wall. The status quo was more or less maintained from 2023. And the only thing that made 2023 interesting was the mid-field battles; there was none to be found in Bahrain. It hurts to admit but I was bored and disappointed.

Alas, it’s only the first grand prix of the longest ever formula one season and technically anything can still happen. Maybe the Red Bull doesn’t work on some circuits as Max is trying to convince us. Or maybe Bahrain was a red herring and the pack is actually closer than we think. One can dream. Bring it on Jeddah!