After a long winter, the 2024 Formula One season is finally underway. The majority of the teams debuted their 2024 challengers during the pre-season test at the very track they just competed in.
It wasn’t unrealistic, therefore, to expect a pecking order derived from long-run data gathered towards the end of the test. However, as F1 evolves fairly rapidly, and as several teams may have opted to not show their hand during testing, this data can be inaccurate.
Which is exactly the case. The 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix offers us the very first glimpse into the true competitiveness of the grid. And the racing was excellent too, considering that many drivers need impressive drives to bag a seat for 2025.
Despite a decent start from the Ferrari of Leclerc, Verstappen manages to keep his lead. 2024 regulations now enable DRS one lap after a start, so the Dutch driver had to scamper off and break away from that. It came as no surprise to anyone that the RB20 had vastly superior pace to the rest of the pack, so Verstappen managed that easily.
Carlos Sainz, officially out of a Ferrari drive by the end of the season, managed to close up on Leclerc in the opening stages of the Grand Prix. The Monégasque driver was struggling with brake issues, and Sainz capitalised on that with an aggressive move into the first corner on lap 11.
McLaren and Mercedes struggled at various stages of the race. The two teams were fairly evenly matched, and appear to be marginally behind Ferrari, with the works Mercedes team struggling with some reliability issues during the race.
The biggest unknown in the top five is with the true pace of Aston Martins. Stroll was hit by Hulkenburg on the first lap, and was last at one point in the Grand Prix. Alonso had a questionable strategy which affected his finishing position too. They finished the race P9 and P10.
Zhou drove a brilliant race to finish just outside the points in P11. Unfortunately for Sauber, Bottas was involved in the collision on lap 1, and a botched 51 second pitstop compounded his woes this race. Still, in race trim, they appear to be the sixth best team.
Haas and RB also appear to be fairly evenly matched. Magnussen managed to hold off the two RBs behind him, themselves having some controversy this early on in the season. Ricciardo, on a different strategy to Tsunoda, was catching the Haas and sister RB cars towards the latter stages of the race.
A team order was issued to let the Australian by, much to the annoyance of the Japanese driver. Choice words were exchanged by the duo with the team over the airwaves, and it looks like RB are in for a long season ahead.
Alpine’s 17th and 18th positions were a result of Sargeant making a massive mistake in the race, and Bottas’ poor stop. Otherwise, the French team would have finished last.
Verstappen won the race, 22 seconds ahead of his Red Bull teammate. Sainz completes the podium. The next race weekend will start on the 7th of March!
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