Bahrain 2022 GP Review

Over the last weekend, we saw a scintillating race during the Bahrain GP. This is the first race of the season and it hinted at the performance and pace differences between the teams. Here are my biggest winners and losers this weekend:

Charles Leclare and Max Verstappen leading the race

Winners

1. Ferrari pole position and 1–2 race result just proves that they back at the top of the table and will be in for championship contention this year. We have also heard from Carlos Sainz that even though his team gave the best results possible, he was not happy trailing on Charles Leclerc and want to plug the deficit to him. This only means that both the Ferrari drivers won’t sit back and will take part in the championship fight this year.
2. We saw some incredible racing action that lasted three quarters of the track between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen. This is a promising display of this years’ cars allowing closer racing battles.
3. Haas driver, Kevin Magnussen took a stellar fifth place and Alfa Romeo drivers, Bottas and Guanyu Zhou took P6 and P10 places respectively. The two bottom teams of last year have suddenly found themselves in the midfield and the new regulations have certainly shaken the pecking order.

Losers

1. McLaren seemed to have lost their pace this year and will remain in the bottom teams for at least a few races. It would be a shame if both their talented drivers, Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo do not have a competing car within a few races.
2. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez of Redbull were unlucky and both did not finish the race due to mechanical failures. Hopefully, the failures are one-off and they can bounce back to the top of the tables within a few races.
3. Hamilton and Russell, Mercedes drives got lucky this race due to Redbull’s failures, getting P3 and P4 positions respectively. That said, they are off the pace by at least a second per lap and have to plug in that gap quickly if they hope to participate in the championship fight.
4. Aston Martin and Williams do not seem to have good cars and were fighting at the bottom. They should hopefully bounce back, given that they started development in the early part of 2021 itself.

Jeddah Grand Prix

1. The next race at Jeddah is real soon with the weekend starting on 25th March.
2. Jeddah is a street circuit with really high speed corners and narrow walls making overtaking really dangerous. It was completed last year just before the grand prix and provided a chaotic racing to watch.
3. Jeddah is vastly different from Bahrain and it would be interesting to see how the teams perform to a new track with their new cars. Will the pecking order be the same, or some teams have better advantage at this track than others?

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