F1 Bahrain Grand Prix

DRIVERS 1 – Max VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull Racing) 2 – Sergio PÉREZ (Red Bull Racing) 3 – Fernando ALONSO (Aston Martin)

I think if you have the right people in charge, and they really want to win and they hire the right people, anything is possible. But yeah, this is a great start but we also know that throughout the season you have to keep on developing. I think you mentioned all of it and I think it doesn't matter if it was the previous generation or this one. I think you need to have the vision and the ambition of Lawrence Stroll, or our leadership and our management because the opportunities are there for everybody but it seems that only one team is willing to do whatever it takes to win. We need to learn more from the car, I need to get used to the car. Given the balance issues that we talked about on Friday and Saturday are you surprised to see how big the gap actually is in the first race compared to the first non-Red Bull car? But I think the most important point is that the new Aston Martin is just a new car, a new project. you will get a step back and you will get back to reality. I think the aim in 2023 was, you know, getting the mix in the midfield, maybe leading that midfield and get close to the top three teams eventually. But yeah, we had not the best start today and we had to pass on track. Is that is that the case? It was a great weekend and, yeah, finishing on the podium in the first race of the year, this is just amazing, you know, what Aston Martin did over the winter to have the second best car in race one, this is just unreal.

Naturally, the headlines were filled with news of Max Verstappen's dominance, Lewis Hamilton's struggles and Charles Leclerc's misfortune – but there were ...

So they sacrificed [Zhou Guanyu](https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/zhou-guanyu) in the late stages of the race. It was an uplifting for the Williams team and one which will give Sargeant plenty of confidence as he finds his feet in F1. It meant he finished 16th, but he was able to snatch the fastest lap award away from Gasly to deny Alpine that extra point. Meanwhile, [Mercedes](https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/mercedes-f1) were some way off the podium fight with [Lewis Hamilton](https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/lewis-hamilton) once again left to race with a sub-par car. In the race it didn't go our way, but we learned a lot. [Logan Sargeant's](https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/logan-sargeant) first qualifying session in F1 came to an unfortunate end as he narrowly missed out on Q2 in Bahrain. However, the Williams race strategy was pivotal and, after leaving the two on the soft compound tyre, Albon was able to grab one point finishing 10th. He travelled to the desert with pins in his broken wrist and also a fractured toe, but still qualified eighth. It was a very encouraging result considering there was severe doubt over his fitness for the race. The American was extremely unlucky to suffered such a fate, but still managed to impress in his debut F1 weekend. Sargeant set a time of 1:31:652 – exactly matching the Brit's final lap in Q1. Aston Martin are undoubtedly showing encouraging signs, with their first podium since Sebastian Vettel's Baku success in 2021.

A new Formula 1 season has begun and so has Edd Straw's new way of assessing the drivers - ranking their performances from best to worst.

Sargeant may not have followed in the footsteps of Tsunoda and Zhou in scoring points on his debut, but he made a fine initial impression. But he found it impossible to keep Alonso behind, which was perhaps always a losing battle given how quickly he fell away from the Aston Martin. A late stop for fresh rubber meant a tilt at the fastest lap and it was revealing that he got nowhere near it. His race was complicated by the fact he was vulnerable to the extra grip Leclerc had with fresh softs off the line, meaning Perez slipped to third. He jumped two places on the first lap, getting ahead of Russell thanks to a marginally better start and then passing Alonso into Turn 4. While he could maintain the advantage over Russell, Alonso was always likely to become a problem given the Aston Martin was, according to Hamilton, “in a different league performance-wise”. But in doing so he left himself with no fresh softs for Q2, meaning he was significantly slower in the second part of qualifying. Tsunoda passed Hulkenberg in the first stint and then made an early stop that allowed him to jump to 11th place. Yes, he was half a second slower than Alonso in qualifying, but only 16 seconds behind in the race. It got him up to eighth place in the early laps, with the team quickly responding to the initial stoppers to cover undercut attacks and preserve his position. He executed the first stint of the race well to establish himself in 10th. He was on his way to a best-possible third place when the Ferrari power unit let him down.

Ferrari and Mercedes are in trouble, Aston Martin's surging, Esteban Ocon is embarrassed, and more learnings from the season opener.

It’s the team’s best start to a season in six years. Alonso and Aston Martin may have stolen the show in Bahrain, but there was another shining star in the Williams squad. But a zero-point start to the year with separate reliability issues on both cars is a sign of the task that lies ahead. Formula One may only be through one race this season, but the midfield looks poised to be a tighter battle than previous campaigns. Lando Norris got all he could out of the MCL60 in qualifying to put it 11th on the grid, but he quickly struggled in the race, falling behind the Williams of Alex Albon in the opening stint. The race quickly got worse as McLaren identified a pneumatic pressure leak on Norris’s power unit, forcing him to pit every 10 laps for the system to be topped up through to the end of the race, which he effectively turned into an extended test session. Ocon claimed many other drivers did exactly the same thing, but it nevertheless resulted in a five-second time penalty that the Alpine driver had to serve at his next pit stop. But in Alpine’s eagerness to get Ocon going again when he pitted, one of the mechanics touched the car 4.6 seconds after he came to a stop. But the race quickly proved there is still plenty of work to be done at Maranello to properly take the fight to Red Bull this year. “The moment comes when the stopwatch comes out and that showed us that we are not good enough,” Wolff said Saturday. Meanwhile, Mercedes’ struggles seem to be back as the Silver Arrows lacked pace in Bahrain. But as Alonso said post-race: “If we are strong in the next two races, I think we will have a very good 2023.”

A dominant victory from Max Verstappen meant the 2023 Formula 1 season begun much as 2022 finished, but away from the one-sided fight at the front there ...

But qualifying was ultimately disappointing, and although it appears to have an edge over the [AlphaTauri](https://www.motorsport.com/team/toro-rosso/12/) and Alfa Romeo squads on pure pace, early optimism could hint at a dash of complacency in the ranks. In the meantime, [Lando Norris](https://www.motorsport.com/driver/lando-norris/289316/) earned six stamps on his pitlane loyalty card during the Bahrain Grand Prix, with a pneumatic leak necessitating frequent top-ups to the air tank to ensure the engine valves could continue to function. We decided to stay in the race, we decided to try and stay at least within one lap from the leader within the last 10 laps. To qualify eighth and then pass the likes of George Russell on the way to a sixth-place finish? Much of Mercedes’ 2022 development was spent on addressing the key fundamental issues that plagued the W13, namely its proclivity to bounce and porpoise like a flailing fish washed up on the shore. Making it to the end of the race would have been quite the feat. There, Alonso placed his car into Turn 8 to get a wider line, and hit the gas to draw along the outside Hamilton in the curved run of track before Turn 10. Detractors would suggest that the Canadian is not really all that invested in being an F1 driver, and that he’s only there because of his dad’s money/team ownership. Now seventh, Alonso settled in for the long haul and watched the Mercedes of George Russell ahead intently, making a note of the degradation that began to afflict the black car. A first tilt at Turn 4 didn’t quite work for Alonso, as he was met with a slap of oversteer that allowed Hamilton to repass, but that only set up the next lap’s sensation. [Max Verstappen](https://www.motorsport.com/driver/max-verstappen/17529/) picked up from where he left off last season, the overall pecking order has been refreshed. Now that the Bahrain Grand Prix is in the books, the 2023 Formula 1 season is officially up and running.

FormulaNerds.com — Features — The 2023 F1 season is off and running. In some respects, nothing has changed; in others, everything has. But what are five key ...

[Alonso looks very, very up for it](https://www.formulanerds.com/news/alonso-praises-aston-martin-for-second-best-car-after-f1-bahrain-grand-prix-podium/) and appears to have rolled back the clock almost two decades. They endured a challenging opening weekend in Bahrain last year as well, but things couldn’t really have gone much worse to start 2023. But arguably, they look to have potentially fallen behind Aston Martin at the start of this season. Nevertheless, they have to make ground on Ferrari and Red Bull quickly or abandon the idea altogether. Even Alpine, who likely have the fifth fastest car at the moment will struggle. Aston Martin’s jump, or rather leap forward, does mean that points will be scarce for the pack behind. After a disappointing qualifying session, Oscar Piastri’s debut lasted only 14 laps as he was forced into retirement. 12 months ago, Red Bull has a disastrous opening race to the season. On race pace alone, Aston Martin may even be ahead of Ferrari. Competing in the cost cap era means it’ll be difficult to pivot away from the ‘no-pods’ theory. Their car also looks to be heavy on its tyres, which will cause them issues at high-degradation circuits. It was a race that simmered away.

A dominant victory from Max Verstappen meant the 2023 Formula 1 season begun much as 2022 finished, but away from the one-sided fight at the front there ...

Dave Robson, the team’s head of vehicle performance, noted that Sargeant “didn’t make a single mistake, was measured in attack and good with his tyres,” which offers an encouraging platform for the Floridian to build from. We decided to stay in the race, we decided to try and stay at least within one lap from the leader within the last 10 laps. But qualifying was ultimately disappointing, and although it appears to have an edge over the AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo squads on pure pace, early optimism could hint at a dash of complacency in the ranks. However, the cost cap has done some of the job it promised by placing all 10 teams on more equal footing, and Bahrain’s race has suggested that there’s no real standout ‘tail-end Charlie’ in the 2023 field. There are no holy cows and we need to decide what is the development direction that we want to pursue, in order to be competitive to win races.” To qualify eighth and then pass the likes of George Russell on the way to a sixth-place finish? Much of Mercedes’ 2022 development was spent on addressing the key fundamental issues that plagued the W13, namely its proclivity to bounce and porpoise like a flailing fish washed up on the shore. Making it to the end of the race would have been quite the feat. His health was still a concern and, through practice, he had to drive one-handed through some of the tighter corners as he wasn’t at full strength. There, Alonso placed his car into Turn 8 to get a wider line, and hit the gas to draw along the outside Hamilton in the curved run of track before Turn 10. Detractors would suggest that the Canadian is not really all that invested in being an F1 driver, and that he’s only there because of his dad’s money/team ownership. A first tilt at Turn 4 didn’t quite work for Alonso, as he was met with a slap of oversteer that allowed Hamilton to repass, but that only set up the next lap’s sensation.

Two Formula 1 drivers received the highest ratings for their performance across the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.

Disappointed to be denied an opportunity to fight for a place in Q3 but stormed off the line and gained three places at the start and showed strong pace throughout. Unable to match Tsunoda all weekend and eliminated in Q1, but his race pace was decent and he gained places throughout. He finished ahead of his team mate in 13th, unable to do much more as the Haas chewed its rubber. Spent the second half of the race staring at the rear wing of Albon’s Williams, unable to catch him down the straight to just miss out on a point in 11th His qualifying performance was solid, but he lost places off the line and compromised his early race hitting Ocon at the start. Typically, Stroll’s performance would have earned a six due to the gap to his team mate over the weekend. The most outstanding performer of the weekend. However, he more than made up for it with a strong performance in the race to secure two points for his new team in ninth, only one second away from Bottas by the chequered flag. After a messy start to the year the team opted to park his car. He was out-qualified by his team mate but spent the entire race ahead despite struggling with wear over his first stint. Did not allow the gap to team mate to balloon to the levels it too often did in 2022. Did the better of the two Mercedes drivers in qualifying but lost out at the start before being overcut by Alonso after his first pit stop and then undercut by Stroll after his second.

The Sporting News delves into the results from the season opening race in Bahrain to bring you our Formula 1 Power Rankings.

Thankfully for the Mexican driver, that start didn't prove detrimental this time around but he's still a substantial way off the impeccable standard that Verstappen is setting in the same car. He gets the edge over Red Bull's Sergio Perez this week for us, mainly for those two overtakes on Hamilton and Sainz. Despite being hit by teammate Lance Stroll on the opening lap, the veteran Spaniard kept his cool to get back into a fight with both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz as he took P3. These standings take into account a number of different aspects. - But which other drivers excelled during the 2023 season opener?

Esteban Ocon is among the winners and losers from the Bahrain Grand Prix, and you can probably guess which category.

Leclerc got off to a strong start, moving from third to second early in the race, and Ferrari was on the verge of perhaps a very strong day. That early red flag was the only, well, “red flag” their entire week of testing. I just didn’t put the lap together and it’s a shame,” [said Gasly](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/gasly-no-answers-after-bahrain-gp-qualifying-frustration-for-alpine/10440010/) after qualifying on Saturday. Gasly was the first driver to box during the Grand Prix, and eventually worked his way up to ninth. He came into pit lane to serve the penalty, but shortly after returning to the track, he was informed that his pit crew began working on his car too soon, and thus now faced a ten-second penalty for improperly serving the initial penalty. But he also conceded that those could be weeks away, which means we might see McLaren in this category a few more times before they can truly right the ship. It was a great start and gives us some good hopes for coming races.” [qualifying](https://www.sbnation.com/23584739/the-f1-glossary) session on Saturday and rolled off 20th at the start. Ocon qualified in ninth, but lost two positions through the first few corners of the race, sliding back to 11th on the grid. Before the field heads to Jeddah for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, it is time to take one last look back at the first weekend of F1 action. Verstappen and Red Bull looked strong throughout pre-season testing, leaving the rest of the field wonder if anyone could close the gap early in the year, and that continued into the first race of the season. It was a far cry from last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which saw both Red Bull drivers fail to finish.