Charles Leclerc put all the speculation and debate to rest as he went out this weekend and dominated the Bahrain GP in the opening weekend of the 2022 Formula One season.
It was not completely without his challenges for Leclerc when after the first round of pit stops unfolded Leclerc had Verstappen right on his tail at lap 16 and was passed by the reigning champ in turn 1 of lap 17 but the Ferrair driver was able to retake the lead in turn 4. This game of leap frog, at these same corners, took place for a couple of laps until Verstappen was the first to crack under the pressure with a big lock-up as he was passing at turn 1 of lap 19 allowing for Leclerc to get out of DRS range and keep the lead for good.
Very early in the season but this is a huge moment for Leclerc. Battling back in forth with Max, in what is clearly the two fastest cars out there at the moment, and he didn’t feel the pressure of the world champ breathing down his neck and getting by him. Just kept calm and kept fighting and took advantage of the mistake. In a battle of nerves he outlasted the champ and that has to build a huge amount of confidence.
Race order for majority of the race was Leclerc, Verstappen, Sainz, Perez, Hamilton, Russell with Ferrari and Red Bull ahead of the pack leaving both Mercedes cars a good distance back to play amongst themselves almost 15 seconds behind the top teams.
Max went in for a late pit stop to switch to new soft tires in a last ditch gamble to pull off a miracle when disaster struck. He immediately started complaining of a steering issue but it didn’t seem to affect his performace as he was posting purple sectors before Pierre Gasley’s AlphaTauri caught fire causing a safety car.
This allowed Leclerc to switch to soft tires of his own without giving up position and as the the race resumed on lap 51 of 57 he easily held the lead for the remainder of the race as Verstappen was battling Sainz to hold onto 2nd. Max started complaing about the battery to his team and before we knew it he was retiring and out of the race putting Sainz in P2 and Perez holding onto P3 from a charging Hamilton.
But as fate would have it today was just not Red Bull’s day when Sergio Perez became the 3rd driver with a Red Bull engine (really a Honda) to have to retire allowing Sir Lewis Hamilton to steal a 3rd place podium.
A disaster situation for Red Bull. Running in P2 and P4 for the majority of the race, the car looking really fast and locking up 30 constructor points to all of a sudden retiring both cars with engine failures as well as Gasley’s AlphaTauri which has the same engine. This is the time they were hoping to build a big a lead as possible on Mercedes while they are still figuring out their own problems. Instead Hamilton is on the podium and his new teammate George Russell finished P4 in a very quiet race for him gaining a combined 27 points to Red Bulls 0. This might not seem like much now but don’t expect Mercedes to be slow for long and we all saw how important each and every possible point is last season.
Today’s Top Ten:
1st Charles Leclerc, Ferrari – 26 points
2nd Carlos Sainz, Ferrari – 18 points
3rd Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes – 15 points
4th George Russell, Mercedes – 12 points
5th Kevin Magnussen, Haas F1 Team – 10 points
6th Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo – 8 points
7th Esteban Ocon, Alpine – 6 points
8th Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri – 4 points
9th Fernando Alonso, Alpine – 2 points
10th Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo – 1 point
