FERRARI WINS BUT IS MERC’S LACK OF PACE AN OMINOUS SIGN FOR THE FUTURE?

Yesterday in Bahrain, Ferrari took their first 1-2 finish in a Grand Prix since Singapore 2019. Reigning World Champion, Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team left with nothing; and Mercedes, the dominant constructor for the last eight seasons, just scraped a podium finish, with Lewis Hamilton taking a lucky third place.

Until the final laps of Saturday’s qualifying, it looked like it was going to be a comfortable weekend for Red Bull and Max Verstappen, with the team looking strong throughout Friday and Saturday’s practice sessions. However, come Q3 in Saturday’s qualifying, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took a surprising pole position, with Max Verstappen just a tenth of a second behind.

Ferrari’s pace was confirmed, with Leclerc’s teammate, Carlos Sainz taking a comfortable third ahead of the sister Red Bull of Sergio Perez. Seven-time champ, Lewis Hamilton dragged his Mercedes to a surprising fifth position, the Mercedes car off the pace to it’s rivals ahead, a fact compounded by Hamilton’s new teammate, George Russell, who could only manage ninth on the grid.

The driver arguably happiest of all, was former Mercedes driver, Valtteri Bottas, who was expected to be languishing at the back this year, after a move to Alfa Romeo, outgunning the man who took his Mercedes seat, Russell and was just a whisker behind his old teammate Hamilton, by qualifying sixth.

The biggest shock of qualifying though, lay with Kevin Magnussen in the HAAS. The Dane, who was drafted into the car at the 11th hour last week, qualified a miraculous seventh, for a team who spent all of 2021 fighting for last place. The top ten was rounded out by Fernando Alonso in eight in his Alpine and Pierre Gasly ninth for Alpha Tauri.

Sunday’s race looked like it was set to be a titanic battle between Ferrari and Red Bull. The teams seemingly closely matched. The action however, was fairly lackluster in the opening phase of the race. Leclerc led away from pole and managed a 2-3 second gap to Verstappen until the first round of pit stops.

Bottas came back to reality at the start of the race, bogging down when the lights went out. His dream sixth-place qualifying turning into a nightmare fourteenth place by the first corner. This not only allowed HAAS-hero Kevin Magnussen to jump up a place, it also allowed him to fight with and pass the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. A sentence no one would have contemplated even a week ago.

Magnussen and Hamilton battled for several laps, swapping places, but eventually Hamilton made a move stick and settled into fifth position. This duel was the only real action of note in the opening gambit of the race, with Bottas making some DRS assisted passes to make his way back up though the field after his dismal start.

Come the first round of pit stops, of the front runners, Red Bull jumped first, hoping to perform the undercut on Ferrari. It nearly worked, as when Leclerc made his stop a lap after Verstappen, he just came out ahead of the Red Bull. The pair battled hard for the next couple of laps, trading the race lead, proving that these new-design 2022 cars can race much more closely, as planned.

Leclerc eventually won that battle and resumed his comfortable lead. Several laps later, the second round of pit stops rolled round, it was a carbon copy of round one, except this time, Leclerc came out of the pits still comfortably in the lead. Verstappen’s response to this was an angry rant over his team radio, he blaming his team for telling him not to over-work his tyres on his out laps, the Dutchman feeling this cost him the lead.

Ferrari and Leclerc had the pace to respond to whatever Red Bull had to throw at them though. In a roll of the dice, Red Bull decided to take a third pit stop. Put on fresh rubber and see if they can catch the team in red. However, their timing couldn’t have been worse. A lap later, Pierre Gasly, in Red Bull’s sister team’s Alpha Tauri, broke down in spectacularly fiery fashion.

This incident brought out the safety car, which essentially gave Ferrari free pit stops to counteract Red Bull’s strategy. While a restart after the safety car may have given Red Bull an opportunity to pounce in a bunched-up grid, over the team radio, Max was complaining of a steering problem and his teammate felt he was losing power.

Then, in the final few laps of the race, Max began began slowing down, his power unit losing power at an alarming rate. He pulled into the pit’s and retired. This promoted the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz to second. Then, on the race’s final lap, the second Red Bull of Perez spun at the first corner, his Red Bull’s failing power-unit locking up his rear wheels.

This double Red Bull retirement gifted Lewis Hamilton a podium position, followed home by his Mercedes teammate, Russell, in fourth. Kevin Magnussen took a heroic fifth for HAAS, followed by Bottas, who had fought his was back to sixth. His Alfa Romeo teammate, China’s Zhou Guanyu, taking a commendable tenth, scoring a point on his debut. The top ten was completed by the Alpine’s of Ocon and Alonso, seventh and ninth respectively; and Yuki Tsunoda was the only Red Bull powered (read: Honda) car to finish, taking seventh and some vital points.

The day belonged to Ferrari though. Charles Leclerc took a commanding victory ahead of his teammate Sainz in second. The Italian team taking the maximum points away from the weekend, with Charles getting the bonus point for the race’s fastest lap. Leclerc is now the first Monegasque to ever lead the F1 World Championship.

What does this bode for the season? Well, Ferrari and the teams powered by their power units (HAAS & Alfa Romeo) are clearly quick. Red Bull don’t seem to be far behind, but reliability is a big worry for them now, with three of their four cars being the only retirements from the race.

The biggest surprise though, is the lack of pace shown by all the Mercedes powered teams. The bottom six cars that finished the race were powered by the Three-pointed-star. Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams wondering where the speed was.

The works Mercedes team themselves, were way off the pace from what they’ve been accustomed to, having dominated this turbo-hybrid era of F1 for the last eight years. The one glimmer of hope Mercedes have though, is that they were comfortably in the top ten all weekend, despite the power-unit clearly being off the pace. This show’s the chassis and aerodynamic package are obviously making up for what the engine lacks.

So, if they get the power situation sorted and this is Mercedes, you’d be mad to bet against them doing so, they will come back strong. Ferrari will have to assert their current dominance before the rest start to crawl their way back.

Luckily, we don’t have long to wait until the next installment, the next race is this weekend in Saudi Arabia. Can Ferrari make it two in a row?