BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 2022

This was not how I expected the season to start. Red Bull had shown dominance alongside Ferrari all of testing and in every practice session, but when it came to the actual race, both Red Bulls and one Alpha Tauri had total failures in the last few laps of the race. Then Charles Leclerc won the first race of the season!!

So three of the four Red Bull engines running had catastrophic failure and took them out of the race.

This was especially horrible because the Red Bulls were running in second (Max) and a couple places behind that (Sergio), so this hurt them terribly. I still don't really know what happened.

The rest of the race was fairly quiet except for some awesome lead-swapping going on between Charles and Max after the pit stops (they were both so professional and respectful) and, of course, the catastrophe for Red Bull at the end.

After the hydraulic issue presented itself, Max fought the car for most of the race, then was forced to bring it in to retire. Sergio's issue was unclear; he turned the car and the engine just died. And Pierre had a big fire break out, so apparently it was overheating or electrical. It all came out of nowhere.

But this was Charles' first win since Monza 2019, so I am so happy for him to have what he deserves: a Ferrari that can finally do justice to his talent.

As enormously happy as I am for Charles, it is so hard to celebrate when I know how demoralizing last weekend was for Red Bull. But if you think of just Charles, and the fact that it was a Ferrari 1-2, and the fact that Mercedes appears to be on the back foot, then there's good things here.

But overall, this is a very worrying start to the season.

Here are my notes from the weekend:

Free Practice 1

⁃ oh my gosh I am ALWAYS fascinated by the new season opening graphics and I am in LOVE with the fact that they saved Max for last because HES WORLD CHAMPION NOW LOOOVE

⁃ Ok so right off the bat, Seb got covid and Nico Hulkenberg is in his seat for the whole weekend

⁃ Ok I am not sure these redesigned tv graphics were necessary.

⁃ WOWW Maxy is racing with the number 1 now!! Because he’s champion!!!

⁃ Before even ten minutes are out, Ocon’s Alpine goes over a bump on the pit straight and the whole side pod cover blows up like shattered glass and exploded all over the track and they yellow flag it and then RED FLAG immediately so that bodes badly

⁃ It is going to be SO CONFUSING that the Alpine’s, who were blue last year, now have the BWT sponsor that Racing Point used to have and now they’re all pink cars

⁃ Now George Russell loses something off the back of the car

⁃ People are just shedding covers and pieces of car like it’s just blowing off

⁃ Porpoising porpoising porpoising. Porpoising everywhere

⁃ Charles has a little spin but still ends up ahead of Sainz on the time sheets

⁃ The Mercedes’ porpoising looks so bad

⁃ Interesting that they don’t have the names of the drivers inside the halos right now because that is really helpful to have usually

⁃ The Ferraris have a problem which I also saw in the testing but the black numbers in their car is basically invisible as it blends into the red paint and it’s awful

Free Practice 2

⁃ Charles puts a FANTASTIC time on the charts right out of the box and it’s fastest above everyone and seven tenths ahead of Sainz who is second

⁃ Maxy puts in a time for second that is half a second behind Charles, what does this mean

⁃ This thing where whenever a McLaren goes by, it’s like scraping on the ground and sounds totally different from anyone else

⁃ So it’s seriously like Max and Charles in first and second the whole session and everyone else just can’t get anywhere near them

⁃ Another fabulous thing is that George Russell did wayyyyy better than Hamilton this session. George was like 4th and Hamilton 8th and that was so satisfying

⁃ Ok McLaren has a problem because La do is slow and Daniel’s car started leaking from the power unit halfway through the session so he has not been able to get really any significant practice in during testing when he couldn’t race because covid and then this session which was stopped because of the leak that sounded bad for all Mercedes powered cars

⁃ If this is the year that Max and Charles are going to have to fight, I don’t think I can handle it

Free Practice 3

⁃ how is it ok for the drivers to "not quite be able to see where they’re going"? I mean

⁃ Daniel’s car is just now being fixed from yesterday so this is not going well for him so for

⁃ Charles has a SUPER SCARY slide that almost went into the wall but stops just in time

⁃ Just like always, they got our hopes up that Mercedes’ would be nowhere near the fast cars and then oh look at the last second of the meaningful practice session, they pull out a competitive lap, wow I’m so surprised NOT

⁃ Yuki has some kind of hydraulic leak issue and isn’t going to put a lap in this session

⁃ The Haas are looking very fast and no one saw it coming from last year at all, but super proud of Kevin and Lil Schu

⁃ Martin observes that George’s car is definitely porpoising worse than Hamilton’s which just further feeds the conspiracy

Qualifying

⁃ only now will we truly see what people’s true pace is

⁃ Yikes, Daniel is way behind in the McLaren and both cars on the team are struggling so badly. Also the Williams just seems off

⁃ The Haas do seem to actually be showing pace as do Ferrari

⁃ Of course the Red Bulls are looking awesome

⁃ The Mercedes are still slightly behind!! And george is ahead of Hamilton at the end of Q1! And Bottas is ahead of Hamilton in the ALFA ROMEO at the end of Q1!!

⁃ Out in Q1: Tsunoda, Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, Stroll, Latifi

⁃ Out in Q2: Ocon, Schumacher, Norris Albon, Zhou

⁃ Zhou would have made it Into Q3 but he was the first one to have a track limits lap deleted, so the stewards are not going to be consistent enforcing that one this year since a bunch of other people would have been out earlier by the same standard

⁃ Kevin has a hydraulic issue! Oh no, because he is like in the top ten strongly and we want him to keep going

⁃ CHARLES GETS POLE AND MAX IN SECOND AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Race

⁃ I am so terrified for this front row of Charles and Max. Is their day to fight finally here??

⁃ Bottas is starting so far up and I love it

⁃ Kevin is starting in 7th, I am so happy

⁃ New regulations say that if you’re in the top ten, you can start on any tire you want which is new

⁃ CHARLES STAYS IN FIRST WOOOO and MAX IN SECOND WOOOO and Kevin gets up into 5th but then falls back from a lockup but still impressive

⁃ Max is worried about the sound of his engine in the corners and they ask him to lift and coast to cool the brake

⁃ Bottas fell way behind and we don’t know why when he started in 6th

⁃ Ocon gets a five second time penalty for causing a collision

⁃ Alex Albon did a great start and is holding off 13th place while his teammate is in like last

⁃ The Mclarens have had terrible starts

⁃ Lol Ferrari already saying Plan A

⁃ Hamilton pits first from fifth

⁃ Hamilton comes out of the pit with no grip at all and is sliding around so that got ugly

⁃ After Charles pits from the lead, he comes out right in front of Max and they DO THREE LAPS OF MAX PASSING THEN CHARLES PASSING HIM BACK and on the last time, Max locks up so the next time he doesn’t have DRS, this is INSANE

⁃ 31/57 max pits for a second time

⁃ 44/57 max and Perez pits for a third time and surprises us and he is so much happier

⁃ Now ferrari is pitting Sainz only in reaction

⁃ MAX REPORTS PROBLEMS but then he’s okay and does a fast lap but still problems

⁃ 46/57 GASLYS CAR IS ON FIRE and overheated and so full safety car and it was a big fire but he’s okay and it’s out

⁃ Something that is wrong with Max’s car happened at the pit stop so he doesn’t pit again because it couldn’t be pitted again to fix it because it’s not a quick issue

⁃ Max is having a hydraulic steering issue it seems so can’t be fixed with ten laps to go

⁃ Safety car is going slow and Charles is upset but he slows down

⁃ Max is very unhappy but apparently this isn’t a reliability issue so just gonna try and finish it

⁃ Lapped cars may now overtake the safety car and Ted is talking about how he is still traumatized from Abu Dhabi last time with the hamilton championship thing hahahha

⁃ 50/57 safety car ending

⁃ 54/57 MAX HAS BATTERY PROBLEMS AND IS PANICKED ON THE RADIO

⁃ OH NO MAX HAS TO RETIRE WITH 2 LAPS LEFT NOOOOOOOOOOOO

⁃ OH NOOOOO NOW SERGIO HAS TO RETIRE BECAUSE HE LOST ENGINE POWER

⁃ THREE OF FOUR RED BULL CARS HAD POWER OR ELECTRICAL ISSUES AND DIDNT FINISH NOOOOO

⁃ CHARLES LECLERC WINSSSSS!!!! This is his third win!! Sainz in second so a Ferrari 1-2 for the first race of the season!! And then Hamilton in third ughh but George finished 4th so that’s great