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Formula One sporting director Ross Brawn told the author’s column on the official F-1 World Cup website about the results of the Bahrain GP stage …
Lewis Hamilton is the runner of the day
We have seen the race with surprising performance from a variety of drivers, but Hamilton has earned most of the accolades for a great performance, one of the best of his entire career. He drove brilliantly, controlled tire wear and was a “silent threat” to absolutely every rivals throughout the race, despite not having the best car this time.
There were only one or two moments when he nodded under pressure from Max Verstappen, but both times he resisted the press.
The Bahrain GP gave a lot to the whole of 2021. season
What really gives positive hope this season is that, at first glance, there is no speed difference between Mercedes and Red Bull, Hamilton and Verstappen. The fate of the Bahrain GP was determined by strategy and the advantage of its position on the track: Mercedes did the best of everything because it applied the most aggressive strategy.
Verstappen and Hamilton were the two main candidates for victory, but in the end Hamilton did better in the race as Max ran unevenly just before the finish. I will not be wrong to say that we saw a fantastic race in which the winner and his pursuer were separated only for a moment.
Changes in regulation in winter have made it possible to further reduce the differences. Very soon, the teams will focus on preparing for next year, so it may happen that no one can get a bigger advantage this year and we will see an impressive season.
When Verstappen caught up with Hamilton, he was unable to chase him during a very long and constant attack because the tires would overheat. The 2022 regulation should solve this problem, so a bright future awaits us.
Not only were Verstappen and Hamilton heroes
I left Bahrain with great optimism. It is unfortunate that Sergio Pérez’s car broke down on the warm-up lap, but once again he demonstrated his exceptional ability to move forward and reached the finish line after starting from the service bar.
Sergio has yet to reach the top of his sport at Red Bull, but he is learning fast and we know he is a very good runner. When he finally gets used to the new team, he will show his potential and fight in the front ranks.
The same can be said for Valtteri Botta, who showed incredible speed during the race but lost due to a slow pit stop. Judging from this race, it didn’t look like a single Mercedes team dominated and will only win all the laurels again this year.
Mercedes returns to normal
It didn’t surprise me much that Mercedes didn’t show anything impressive during winter testing. When I was working on this team, we always set priorities and we didn’t try to show good results through testing.
Today, analytical tools are very accurate, so it is not difficult to draw conclusions. There’s no need to shine in testing, and a slight delay further pushes the team to work harder.
It is worth noting that his car looked much better in the first race. Obviously, the team worked a lot between testing and the first phase.
Red Bull did everything right
I think Red Bull did the right thing by telling Max to regain his position in favor of Lewis. If Verstappen had managed to gain a significant advantage over Hamilton by offsetting a 5 or even 10 second penalty and won the race, such a victory would not have been very pleasant. We don’t want to see victories in that style.
When it comes to Red Bull’s strategy and lack of response to an early stop from Hamilton, it’s predictable that they thought Mercedes had switched to a three-stop tactic.
Tsunoda shone in her debut career
Yuki Tsunoda made a great impression. I only met him this weekend. Yuki is quite a fun person and the race turned out great. This is encouraging, especially considering it was his debut run. I think he’s the best rookie in many years, he made a good impression on all the series he’s just been in.
Red Bull made a good decision when they brought it to Formula One. We all remember the days when the Suzuka track stands were packed and how great the Japanese fans are. I think something similar awaits us again.
Ambiguous emotions after the appearance of Alonso and Vettel
In Bahrain, in the middle, we have seen the fame of the former Fernando Alonso: the Spaniard demonstrated his great talent, which once earned him two world champion titles. When Alpine finds out about the car, Fernando will make us all happy. It is very good for Formula 1 that he is back and I will be interested to see what results he will achieve.
Sebastian Vettel’s debut with Aston Martin was not the best. Fiercely, he accused Esteban Ocon of crashing, but I don’t think anyone agrees with him. Sebastian did not ride the best of his weekend, but I hope he does well. He is a four-time world champion who has the potential to run many good races.
