Verstappen Leads Red Bull to 1-2 Victory in Bahrain Grand Prix Season Opener

Max Verstappen has taken a dominant victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix, ahead of team-mate, Sergio Pérez, in the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season opener. The Dutchman took pole position on Saturday evening in the desert, and was left relatively interrupted throughout the entire race. Fernando Alonso would also finish on the podium in what is a fantastic start to the season for Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team, while team-mate Lance Stroll would also put in a great effort to finish sixth.

Disaster for the Scuderia

Scuderia Ferrari looked set to score at least one podium place following a successful three-four qualifying position on Saturday night, with Charles Leclerc even passing Pérez on the run down to Turn 1 on the opening lap. Pérez would eventually return to second place after opting to switch to the Soft tyre in the second stint (locking him into a two-stop strategy) in an attempt to reclaim the position. Leclerc would then retire from the third in the race on lap forty-one as a result of the engine completely cutting out in the third sector.

Carlos Sainz would inherit the third place, but soon started to struggle with aging tyres while Lewis Hamilton battled Alonso behind. After clearing Hamilton, Alonso would soon catch up to his fellow Spaniard and overtake him in a fantastic fashion, taking advantage of his extra grip in the Turn 9 and Turn 10 complex. Alonso would soon pull away, as Hamilton started to apply pressure to the remaining Ferrari, but the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team driver would fail to make it past before his tyres started to wear.

Sainz would cross the line in fourth, while Leclerc failed to finish, in what was a disastrous opening event for Ferrari.

Mercedes will be smiling (slightly)

After being sandwiched between the two Aston Martin cars in qualifying, the team at Mercedes can leave Bahrain with something to be happy about, having out-scored the Ferrari team. However, this will only be a slight smile, as the performance gap between the top teams is still a large one to close.

Hamilton overtook his team-mate, George Russell, on the opening lap of the race and spent the entirety of his race squabbling with Alonso, before eventually settling for fifth place. Russell, on the other hand, was also in a tight battle with the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll, who was able to keep ahead of the Briton to take sixth place, despite recovering from training injuries.

The Aston Martin cars were certainly quicker than Mercedes today, which leaves the British-based constructor questioning their position in the top three. Following a race weekend and pre-season testing being hosted in Bahrain, racing at another track will be a helpful insight for the team to really discover where they stand.

The rest of the field

Valtteri Bottas had a good race for Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, having started from twelfth and crossing the line in eighth. His team-mate, Guanyu Zhou, meanwhile, did not have a strong start to the season after finishing in position sixteen. The young Alfa Romeo driver did, however, steal the extra fastest lap point away from the top ten finishers – though he will not benefit from it due to his finishing position.

Pierre Gasly, however, was one of the drivers of the day on his BWT Alpine F1 Team debut, finishing ninth after starting from the back of the grid. The Frenchman found himself eliminated in Qualifying One on Saturday after lacking pace and having a time deleted due to track limit infringements, but would charge through the field to take home two points on his debut.

Alpine team-mate, Esteban Ocon, however, saw his race fall apart before it even started. After failing to line his car in the grid box properly before the start procedure, the Frenchman received a five second time penalty that was served at his first pitstop. One of the Alpine mechanics accidentally started working on the car before the five second penalty had been completed, which prompted an extra 10 seconds to be added to his race time. The number thirty-one driver would also receive one more penalty for speeding in the pit-lane, before choosing to retire the car after forty-one laps.

Alexander Albon would score the final point of the race with a great tenth place finish for Williams F1 Team, while rookie team-mate, Logan Sargeant, would also impress on his Formula 1 debut with a twelfth place finish. The American driver barely missed out on Qualifying Two on Saturday evening after setting an identical time to Lando Norris, but was knocked out as the Briton had set it his time first.

Yuki Tsunoda came close to scoring points at the start of his third season with Scuderia AlphaTauri, crossing the line in eleventh place. Nyck De Vries would also cross the line in fourteenth place in what was another good rookie drive in his first Formula 1 outing as a full-time driver.

Kevin Magnussen made up four places over the course of the Bahrain Grand Prix, finishing the race in thirteenth place; though his team-mate, Nico Hülkenberg, did go backwards after qualifying tenth and finishing fifteenth. Haas F1 Team had a bizarre weekend, with one driver showing pace and the other driver not, which makes it difficult to identify where they are on the field.

Finally, McLaren F1 Team would also have an awful day after an electronics issue during a slow stop put Oscar Piastri out of his debut race. Lando Norris also had an issue with his McLaren car that required refilling an air tank at many frequent pitstops, which eventually resulted in the retirement of his car. It has been a tricky weekend for the papaya-coloured team, who will walk away from Bahrain with zero points.

You can find the full race results below, data courtesy of Formula 1:

POS	NO.	DRIVER	CONSTRUCTOR	NAT	TIME/GAP
1	1	Max Verstappen	Oracle Red Bull Racing	NED	1:33:56.736
2	11	Sergio Pérez	Oracle Red Bull Racing	MEX	+11.987s
3	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team	ESP	+38.637s
4	55	Carlos Sainz	Scuderia Ferrari	ESP	+48.052s
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team	GBR	+50.977s
6	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team	CAN	+54.502s
7	63	George Russell	Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team	GBR	+55.873s
8	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN	FIN	+72.647s
9	10	Pierre Gasly	BWT Alpine F1 Team	FRA	+73.753s
10	23	Alexander Albon	Williams F1 Team	THA	+89.774s
11	22	Yuki Tsunoda	Scuderia AlphaTauri	JAP	+90.870s
12	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams F1 Team	USA	+1 lap
13	20	Kevin Magnussen	MoneyGram Haas F1 Team	DEN	+1 lap
14	21	Nyck De Vries	Scuderia AlphaTauri	NED	+1 lap
15	27	Nico Hülkenberg	MoneyGram Haas F1 Team	GER	+1 lap
16	24	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN	CHN	+1 lap
17	4	Lando Norris	McLaren F1 Team	GBR	+2 laps
18	31	Esteban Ocon	BWT Alpine F1 Team	FRA	DNF
19	16	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari	MON	DNF
20	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren F1 Team	AUS	DNF

Data courtesy of Formula 1.