F1: Ominous Opener

After pre-season testing, it surprised no-one that Red Bull were the team beat. However, what was a shock, was quite how far ahead of the rest field they are.

Max Verstappen cruised to comfortable win in the opening round of the 2023 F1 season, ahead of his team-mate, Sergio Perez, who sealed a 1-2 finish for the Red Bull Racing team.

Max finished the race nearly 40-seconds ahead of third place, Fernando Alonso, who brought the only real entertainment of the entire race, pulling off some great overtaking maneuvers on the two Mercedes drivers, most notably, his old foe, Lewis Hamilton.

Thank goodness Fernando still has the passion for racing in his fourth decade on this earth, because without him, the Bahrain GP was as dull as ditch water. Which makes you wonder, how long will the new Drive to Survive generation of fans hang on, when the on track action is so dull and predictable?

Alonso could be Max's closest rival

I'm no fair-weather fan, I've been watching F1 for over 30-years and I'm fully aware that the sport goes though peaks and troughs, but not everyone is as nerd-deep as I. DTS really caught the attention of the masses during COVID, when everyone was stuck inside with hours of free time to binge watch Netflix. This then coincided with the 2021 F1 season, which was arguably the most exciting F1 season ever, certainly of the modern era. 2021 would have been the first season for a lot of new fans and it will have given a lot of those new fans a false sense of excitement about F1 on a grander level.

Not every season is like 2021. To be brutally honest, most season's are quite formulaic. One team tends to steal a march, dominate and just as everyone starts to catch up, we have a regulation change. Rinse and repeat.

While it's way too early to judge the 2023 season in it's entirety, the signs from the opening round were pretty ominous.

Over the race distance, the Red Bull's pace differential to the next quickest car (Ferrari, who we'll get to in a moment) was nearly six-tenths of a second. Six-tenths is a chasm in F1 terms.

Once Max opened up a comfortable lead, he definitely pulled his pace back and went into conservation mode. Which means in real-terms, that six-tenths could actually be nearer a second, should Red Bull need to apply the pressure.

Which they probably won't. The nearest car to them, in terms of pace, was the Ferrari, however, it absolutely ate it's tryes and, more worrying, Charles Leclerc's car shit the bed while he was running in second position.

A bad day for Ferrari

This is bad news for Ferrari, because next in line, Aston Martin, are only marginally behind them on the stopwatch, but it managed it's tyres much more successfully and with Alonso at the wheel, he's going to steal points from Ferrari at every opportunity. Mercedes looked like they might lead the way this year, the way of the mid-field. They've now openly admitted that the car concept is wrong, so they either give up on this car and this season of start from scratch, either way, they have a lot to do to catch up. How long will Hamilton last, not even fighting for podiums, before he's decided he's had enough? F1 will lose a massive asset if they lose Lewis. The rest of the pack? Alfa, Haas and Alpine will probably have a close fought battle. Their respective driver pairings have mixed weekends, but the cars are similar enough on pace.

Williams had a decent weekend, with Albon scoring a point and Sargent finishing 12th in a clean opening race for the rookie. That leaves Alpha Tauri and McLaren. The former had a nondescript weekend. The car not particularly quick and their driver pairing being distinctly average compared to those around them.

Mclaen, poor McLaren. The car was slow in testing, it was slow at the first race and it was unrelaible. Piastri DNF'd early on with an electrical issue and while Lando finished, he did so 2-laps down and with a pneumatic leak that plagued his whole race. Trying times for the Woking-based team. Let's see how thing play out in round 2 in Jeddah. It's a very different track and the teams will go into it with lessons learned from Bahrain.

However, with the advantage they have, Red Bull are going to be hard to get close to, let alone beat. Will it be possible to see Verstappen take a clean-sweep this year? Well it could be a reason to watch at least.