F1. Bahrain 2024 Review

By Gavin Huet, Chelsea Wintle and Aiden McLaughlin

Driver of the day

Gavin – Carlos Sainz. The man without a drive next year has started the season in top gear. He overtook his teammate Charles Leclerc (more on that later) and made short work of Mercedes’ George Russell. He has a point to prove and he certainly made it, I just cannot see him not being on the grid somewhere next season and I don’t think he will be in any of the struggling teams either. Smooth.

Chelsea – Carlos Sainz. In a race that brought little in the way of revelations, Sainz was solid throughout, and gave us some choice wheel-to-wheel action with Charles Leclerc. With both a point to prove and the freedom of being untethered from 2025, we could see more characteristic brilliance from Sainz this year, which I am more than ready for.

Aiden – When you are told your Ferrari contract won’t be renewed, what better way to start the season than to beat your teammate Charles Leclerc, and take a podium behind the Red Bulls. Carlos Sainz is putting himself at the front of that shop window for 2025 and beyond.

 

Moment of the weekend

Gavin – As hinted earlier I am going for Carlos overtaking his Ferrari teammate Charles. This was not some team stage managed scenario, this was racing, close racing. There was a point in the overtake that it looked like they were getting too close but fair play to both drivers as it was hard racing but fair racing. We definitely need to see more of this over the next 23 races in the season.

Chelsea – Late in the race, Yuki Tsunoda was on the heels of Kevin Magnussen in P12, with RB teammate Daniel Ricciardo immediately behind. Team orders came through telling them to switch places, presumably because Ricciardo was on the softer tyre, with little payoff bar the brain explosion it brought about in Tsunoda. After the chequered flag, fiery Tsunoda dive-bombed his teammate and almost took him out, causing Danny Ricc to refer to him as a “f***ing helmet”. Quite.

Aiden – Geri Horner arriving at the track with husband Christian. Stay with me here. Anyone who watches F1, or even limits their viewing to Drive to Survive, will have observed that the former Spice Girl is at plenty, if not most Grand Prix weekends. Yet, because of the ongoing attention her husband is receiving for an internal investigation (in which he was cleared of any wrongdoing) the social media world nearly exploded when pictures appeared online of the couple arriving at the track, hand-in-hand. Predictably, those know-it-all observers said it must all be for show/damage limitation/to save his position. The hysteria around this resolved investigation is now completely boring. Let’s get back to more interesting things.

 

Hot take of the weekend

Gavin – Team RB have a problem of their own making – enforcing team orders to make Yuki Tsunoda give up track position to Daniel Ricciardo to attack Haas’ Kevin Magnusson. Now this in itself would be fine, but Danny was no faster than Yuki, they were sitting outside the points in P13 and P14, and the attack on Kevin never materialised. And just when you think it is over Yuki dived across Danny on the cool down lap which led to Danny labelling his teammate as “immature”! What an absolute mess.

Chelsea – Almost obfuscated by the week’s smuttier news, a whistleblower claimed FIA honcho Mohammed ben Sulayem unduly interfered with two 2023 races – firstly telling officials to overturn an Alonso penalty in Saudi Arabia, and secondly discouraging the certification of the Las Vegas circuit. My early-season predictions are notoriously bad, but I’d put money on this one going absolutely nowhere.

Aiden – Max Verstappen to Mercedes. Seems crazy right? But with his father Jos meeting Toto Wolff over the weekend and also saying about Christian Horner “there is tension here while he remains in position” and “the team is in danger of being torn apart”, then maybe it’s a goer for 2025 or 2026. Let’s not forget Lewis Hamilton had a get-out clause at Mercedes, so it’s probably fair to assume Max has something similar. After multiple world titles, maybe the Verstappens also feel like it’s time for a new challenge before Max potentially retires in 2028.

 

Cold take of the weekend

Gavin – Alpine are in serious trouble. They qualified in the last two places on the grid, and if it wasn’t for Logan Sargeant in the Williams with cooling and steering wheel issues, coupled with Haas’ Valteri Bottas with a very, very, very, long pit stop, they would have ended the race in those same positions. It was such a disastrous opening race for the team that heads have already rolled – technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer have resigned from their roles. This does not bode well for a team with two highly rated young, yet experienced, drivers. If the slide continues they may be looking for more than just technical staff.

Chelsea – It’s so hard not to give a completely unhinged-yet-raw take on the Horner situation, which seems to be evolving by the day. Of the members of this panel, I was the only one to valiantly volunteer to read all 72 pages of messages – shocker. I wish I could say they turned my stomach, but they didn’t turn anything at all. Horner’s lonely, flaccid banter will mean he’ll get hit with Coco Pops jibes at every turn, but more importantly, the division in the Red Bull camp is not going anywhere. It’s the story to watch this season.

Aiden – Red Bull to win all races this season. The RB20 looks even better than the RB19 and I just can’t see any of the other teams bridging the gap. They are already relying on driver mistakes and reliability issues. The race is once again for second.

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