Formula 1 is back, but did the first race weekend disappoint? For the casual fan, seeing the result of the race might be a tad disappointing; not many incredible battles, a dominant victory, not even a single retirement. But was it really all that bad?
It's an era where one team have built an exceptional car, and developed it even further. Adrian Newey and co. have transformed the Championship winning car from 2023 into what seems to be an even faster, and more reliable race car for 2024. With very minor issues ironed out between testing and qualifying, the opening weekend was a slam dunk for Max Verstappen and the team; claiming pole position, fastest lap, leading every lap of the race, and winning, with Sergio Perez rounding out the 1-2 for the team.
Despite all the controversy the team have found themselves in in recent weeks around Christian Horner and an internal investigation into his behaviour with another colleague, the team seem in strong spirits and pulled off the perfect weekend to kick start the new season. Their closest rivals, Ferrari, seemingly having a few issues with tuning their brake balance for Leclerc's car, and Sainz having to make up a few places and hold off the faster Checo behind him, meant the best they could do was P3 for Carlos & P4 for Charles.
The Scuderia team will be hoping to sort out the issues ahead of Jeddah next week, where they've proved some difficulty with race pace in recent years and that race win in Saudi Arabia is seemingly just out of arms reach for the team.
It was a much more positive start to the season for McLaren when you compare how their 2023 journey began. Struggling to score any points for the first half of the season, its bodes much better for the Papaya team, banking 12 points on their opening weekend this year.
Growing off the backend of last year where they were often fighting for podiums - and some times even race wins - their car is in a much stronger place to continue their season development. But it will be a few race weekends before we see any upgrades coming to the McLaren cars; Zak Brown has explained that their next upgrade package is scheduled for round 7 in Imola - holding off until after the first two Sprint races in Shanghai and Miami. Much like 2023, it seems their development timeline is a bit more delayed compared to the teams around them, but with a decent points haul already, this season is looking more promising for McLaren.
Mercedes has taken a small step backwards for the start of the season, taking a completely different development route into the 2024 season. But both drivers remain in good spirits, with everyone in the team generally happy with the cars performance all through testing and practice sessions this weekend. The race saw a few cooling issues being managed by both drivers running dirty air that saw them doing a lot of lifting and coasting to get the cars to the end, but the general response from it all was it was a great start in terms of learning about the new car and fine tuning areas to improve moving forward.
"We have seen the glipmses of performance here in Bahrain, but we couldn't materialise that today. We will go away and make sure we build on our learning and come back stronger" - Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
As for Aston Martin, they see themselves to be pretty comfortable with the outcome this weekend. Their qualifying result was higher than even they had expected, with Alonso getting through to Q3 and starting the race P6, with Stroll in P12. Managing race pace, and a spin for Stroll on the first lap, both drivers finished in the points in 9th and 10th. While on paper, dropping back 3 places might not seem great for the team, Alonso has explained that "is exactly what we expected". A solid start for Aston Martin, with a whole year of development available to build on what they've learned this weekend & beyond.
There was a bit of turmoil between the two RB drivers of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda. With team orders coming into play mid-battle, Tsunoda was not impressed with the teams decision to ask him to trade places with Ricciardo (who was on fresh softs, compared to Yuki's hards). Eventually giving in to the request a lap later than they had planned, Ricciardo was unable to gain any extra places, and finished ahead of Tsunoda in 13th and 14th respectively.
"We weren't fighting for points, so we'll have to review everything and learn from it for the future" - Yuki Tsunoda, RB
A surprisngly strong weekend for Haas, who had looked to be lacking pace and struggling with their car during testing last week. After Steiner had been dropped as team principal, Ayao Komatsu has stepped up to pull the team off the bottom of the standings. The car's one lap pace looks to be one of the strongest of the mid/back-field, with Hulkenberg comfortably getting through to Q3 and qualifying 10th, with Magnussen starting the race 15th. The race wasn't so smooth sailing, with a damaged front wing to Hulkenberg after contact with Stroll on lap 1, his race was over before it started. Magnussen, however, was able to demonstrate the decent race pace of the Haas, and prove that over the season they can be in the fight for points.
Williams and Sauber had a decent weekend when you look at their race pace, but with a few unforseen technical issues, both lost out on any points and quickly moved to learning from the car this weekend. Sargeant suffered an issue with the steering wheel that sent him off track on Lap 10, managing to continue his race to the chequered flag finishing last. Bottas had an issue in the pits, with the wheel nut grinding down on the wheel, it needed replacing which saw a long 52.4 second pitstop.
Alpine, unfortunately, had a shocking start to the season. We knew they weren't too happy with their car during testing, but this weekend has proven they are much further behind than most had expected. Qualifying 19th and 20th, with Gasly nearly 0.3s off Sargeant in the Williams in P18, it was going to be a tough race for the all-French team - and tough it was. A weekend for learning and developing the car futher, they didn't come in with much hope of scoring any points or exceeding any expectations. If it wasn't for Sargeant having an issue, and Bottas' unfortunate lengthy pitstop, it would have been a back-marker finish for both Alpine cars.