We were back at the Bahrain circuit in 2022, for race 1 of the 2022 season, and it has finally revealed to us the real pecking order – no turned down engines, reliability doubts or rumors of Mercedes sandbagging.
And all the action, juicy details missing from the live show and behind the scenes news will be covered all in one place under Race Rundown where I recap the GP weekend after every race.
Free Practice 1
Our first look at these brand new F1 cars at a GP weekend; rather than give away the true standings of the teams, showed us more of what the major problems teams would need to fix by race day. Alpine’s modified sidepod on Ocon’s car, designed to extract more performance from it, found itself ripped to pieces down the main straight. Mercedes drivers Russel and Hamilton found themselves riding a Benz roller coaster in the straights, with sparks raining down behind their car and George even losing part of his front wing in the process. Meanwhile, Bottas had an unlucky start to the season, unable to go out due to a misfiring issue with his engine and Nico Hulkenberg took Vettel’s spot who was covid positive.
Free Practice 2 & 3
FP2 and 3 were mostly a mixed bag of results with many teams on different programs. But Mercedes’ struggles continued, Max topped the time sheet both times with Checo and the Ferraris close behind, and Kevin in the Haas and Bottas in the Alpha Romeo had better than expected results.
Qualifying
Qualifying this year is going to be truly remarkable. Drivers can push to the fullest in all the sessions including Q2 as all drivers get free choice of tyres for the start of the race as opposed to the top 10 starting on the tyre, they set their fastest time in Q2 with.
Unexpected eliminations in Q1 were Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo as he is still coming to terms with the car after missing the Bahrain Test. And of all things, both the Haas cars and only rookie this year, Zhou Guanyu made it into to Q2 where Zhou and Mick in the Haas were eliminated. The Q3 streak of Bottas also went unbroken as the Finn made it to Q3 for the 102nd time. And in Q3 it was Ferrari – Red Bull domination as the red cars went 1 – 3 and the blue ones 2 – 4. Also Bottas took P6, Kevin took P7, and Russel was pushed down to P9.
Race Day
“Lights out and away we go” for the first race of the season and immediately drama in the starting laps. Perez lost 2 positions due to traffic, Ocon slapped with a 5 second penalty for spinning Mick and Bottas with a horrendous start dropping down to P14. Perez eventually breezed past Kevin and Lewis – yes Lewis the 7-time world champion to retake P4.
Battle for the Lead
Thereafter it was smooth sailing up until the brilliant lap 17 battle for the lead, where Max closed a near 1 second gap to Leclerc down the main straight and overtook him only for Leclerc to overtake Max down the second straight and come out P1 at turn 4 and they repeated this for another 2 laps until Max locked up into turn 1 and lost DRS on the Ferrari.
Red Bull Double Trouble
Then came lap 46 where Gasly had to stop his car on track due to a fire cause by overheating and Max started complaining about his steering and being unable to turn the car. VSC or the Virtual Safety Car helped clear the track and as racing had resumed Max’s troubles only got worse, as he lost power, got overtaken by multiple cars and had to limp back to the pit lane. And Red Bull trying to keep Checo in P3 in front of Hamilton, had another shocker – his engine halted locking up the rear wheels into turn 1 of the final lap, to rub salt into Red Bull’s wound with a double DNF in the first race of the season.
Ferrari went on to take a 1 – 2, Hamilton took P3 with Russel behind him – a result Mercedes took very happily considering they were only the 3rd fastest car on track and Kevin and Bottas took well deserved P5 and P6 respectively with Bottas’ teammate rookie Zhou finishing in the points on his very first F1 race. Overall, a very good day for most teams except Red Bull and McLaren, who’s Ricciardo finished P14 ahead of Lando in P15.
