Incredible VC Bahrain! Red Bulls fail to finish, Ferrari back on top, Gasly extinguishes burning car or what did the opening race of the season show?

A race that created more questions than it provided answers. This is undoubtedly how the first grand prix of this season could be interpreted. Especially with regard to the tyres, what happened on the track was completely different to what Pirelli itself had predicted. So how did the first race of the season turn out?

Double Ferrari. That’s something we haven’t seen in Formula 1 for a long time, yet that’s how the Bahrain Grand Prix ended.

The opening race of the 2022 season answered many questions, but created countless more. Completely different to the Pirelli predictions was the behaviour of the tyres. Less degradation was predicted for the new 18-inch tyres and, above all, they were supposed to guarantee a higher pace for the monoposts.

However, the drivers often struggled with understeer and the cars simply did not hold up as well in the corners. Another aspect is that the drivers were able to complete more laps on the soft specification tyres than on the hard set.

Whether it was Lando Norris on the McLaren or Lewis Hamilton on the Mercedes who did only 16 laps on the hardest set of tyres, several other drivers did around 20 laps on the compound marked in red and therefore the softest.

With the exception of Mick Schumacher and Pierre Gasly, who retired from the Bahrain Grand Prix on the 46th lap due to technical problems, all drivers stopped at their mechanics three times.

The Mercedes, McLaren and Alpine drivers even tried all three tyre specifications during the race.

Thus, on lap 46, the track marshals had to extinguish Gasly’s AlphaTauri and yellow flags were waved, with race directors declaring first a virtual, then a classic safety car situation.

However, the season opener proved that the monoblocs can chase each other through the corners thanks to the ground effect and therefore very reduced dirty air generation.

As we wrote above, Sunday’s race was dominated by the Ferrari drivers, but the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix was truly incredible. The Ferrari and Red Bull cars were battling it out for the podium throughout the race.

Max Verstappen, however, retired from the race on lap 55 due to technical problems, specifically with the hybrid part of the power unit, which takes care of the recovery of kinetic energy, for example, during braking.

But that was far from all, as Sergio Pérez also spun in Turn 1 on the last lap of the race and his Red Bull was unable to continue! Red Bull’s engineers thus have a somewhat unexpected problem ahead of them, one that may be very difficult to solve.

So this is what the final standings for the Bahrain Grand Prix look like. It should be noted, they’ve done a very good job in Maranello over the last few years – they’ve changed the power unit concept quite substantially, and last year the Italian stable did a solid job of upgrading it.

What’s more, in the new era they have come up with a completely different concept in terms of aerodynamic solutions. The result is a double in the opening race of the season, plus Ferrari can start to build on the current state of their cars, while other teams have to focus on making significant adjustments to their monopoles.

“I’m really extremely happy, the last two years have been very difficult for our team, but we’ve managed to build fantastic cars and I thank everyone who has supported us over the years,” Leclerc said in a post-race interview.

Leclerc’s words were backed up by his teammate Carlos Sainz, who noted that they had great pace throughout the weekend.

“I have to congratulate Ferrari for their result. It’s a historic team and it’s good to see them back on top. However, we did everything we could in this race. We have to keep our heads down and keep working,” Hamilton said after the race.

McLaren took a big fall, as they still can’t seem to get the monocoque setup right, and they still haven’t come up with an effective solution for cooling the brakes. In contrast, the American Haas stable is on the rise.

The latter has invested absolutely everything into the new season and the new era, and as a result has jumped into the middle of the grid. However, all teams will continue to develop their monoblocks, so it is still too early to make any detailed assessments.

The next race is next week, when the queen of motorsport moves to Saudi Arabia.

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