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Bad luck halts Oracle Red Bull Racing's podium charge in the Bahrain desert
Late-race heartbreak sees podium finishes go begging for Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez and Oracle Red Bull Racing in the F1 season-opener at the Bahrain International Circuit.
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A double-dose of ill fortune late in the race scuppered the podium chances of Oracle Red Bull Racing duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc winning the opening round of the 2022 Formula One campaign from pole position.
Reigning world champion Verstappen engaged in a thrilling three-lap fight with Leclerc for the lead from Laps 17 to 19 after the first round of pit stops, but the Dutch driver battled bravely with a steering issue late in the race that saw him retire four laps from the finish. He was classified in 19th place.
Verstappen and Leclerc had a stirring fight for the lead
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Pérez, who had a strategic battle with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz for the majority of the race, started the final lap in third place, but a reliability issue pitched him into a spin at the first corner and he was classified in 18th position.
Leclerc headed Sainz in a Ferrari 1-2, the first victory for the Italian team since Sebastian Vettel's win in the Singapore Grand Prix of 2019. Lewis Hamilton rounded out the rostrum after Pérez's late drama for the 183rd podium of his career.
Here's how an evening of so near, yet so far shook out Oracle Red Bull Racing under the night skies in Bahrain.
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Max's run comes to an end
If the sight of Verstappen not on the podium comes as a shock, it should; the reigning world champion finished the final eight races of his title-winning 2021 campaign on the rostrum and ended 10 of the last 11 races last year spraying champagne.
Racing using number one in F1 for the first time (and the first time the sport has seen it used since Vettel campaigned it for Red Bull Racing in 2014), Verstappen looked like Leclerc's only challenger for the win from qualifying, where he lined-up alongside the Monegasque driver on the front row of the grid.
The race came alive after Verstappen pitted on Lap 14, the Dutchman attacking Leclerc after the Ferrari stopped a lap later. For three straight laps, Verstappen pulled off brilliant braking moves at Turn 1 to take the lead, only for Leclerc to snatch the advantage back at Turn 4.
Battling tyre wear and traction issues, Verstappen pitted for a third time on Lap 44 to set up a late-race assault and when Pierre Gasly had to retire his Scuderia AlphaTauri car two laps later, a safety car was required – and the door opened.
The race came down to a seven-lap sprint to the flag, but Verstappen immediately knew he had power steering issues after the resumption and had to slow from second on Lap 54, retiring in the pits.
The Dutchman looked set for a podium before his late-race misfortune
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
"It was a brutal finish to that race for us," Oracle Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said. "What looked like a decent haul of points suddenly evaporated in the last couple of laps. It looks like a similar issue on both cars, but we don't know exactly what the issue is yet. We've got to get into it and discover exactly what's caused it."
Horner said Verstappen's final pit stop caused a steering issue that was unrelated to the Dutchman's eventual retirement.
"The steering issue was when the car got dropped (off the jacks) at the final stops, I think it's tweaked a track rod, so that's why it was steering slightly different left to right," he explained.
"Of course he's disappointed, when you're looking at a comfortable second place … we'd had a pretty decent run until then. Ferrari were a little bit quicker than us today, but we had a go at it. Max made the pass first at Turn 1, but we gave it a shot. Ferrari just had a quicker car today."
So near yet so far for Checo
Sergio Pérez looked set to convert a typically astute race into silverware after Verstappen's retirement, the Mexican using a contrary tyre strategy to stalk Sainz as the Leclerc versus Verstappen battle raged at the front.
Running the slower but more durable medium-compound Pirelli tyre after his first pit stop, Pérez had the faster soft tyres at his disposal for the fight to the flag, but reported a power issue to the team over the radio before his RB18 eventually spun just corners from the close.
Sergio Pérez had a podium go begging on the last lap
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
"Brutal for Sergio, last lap. He'd held off Lewis into Turn 1 and then unfortunately the issue – nothing he could do," Horner said. "Zero points for us is tough, but the positives we can take is that we've had a competitive car. We were fighting for the race win at different points of that race. We've got to get on top of these issues quickly, but it's a long season – 23 races. We've got to put this behind us."
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Tsunoda reprises Bahrain charge to points
Twelve months ago, AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda turned heads with a swashbuckling display on his F1 debut in Bahrain, battling with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso on the way to a stirring ninth-place finish.
The chances of a repeat didn't look likely for the Japanese driver after he was knocked out in Q1 on Saturday, but Tsunoda was at his fighting best in the early laps to immediately knock on the door of the top 10, making more points a possibility.
Late-race fights with Alonso and the Spaniard's team-mate, Esteban Ocon, saw Tsunoda split the Alpine pair to snare eighth place for AlphaTauri and get his 2022 season off to a strong start.
Yuki Tsunoda had plenty to smile about after his charge to 8th
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Like Verstappen and Pérez, Gasly was also out of luck, the Frenchman's car shutting down as he came through Turn 2 on Lap 46, a brief fire seeing him have to scamper from his machine.
Gasly, who led opening practice on Friday for some early-season bragging rights, unfortunately became the year's first retirement.
Backmarkers surge as F1 flips script
Haas and Alfa Romeo finished last and second-last respectively in 2021, but the brand-new cars for this season flipped the fortunes for both outfits, with three of their four drivers finishing inside the top 10.
For Haas, pointless in 2021, there were joyous scenes as returnee Kevin Magnussen finished fifth. The Dane was cast aside for Nikita Mazepin in 2021 before coming back midway through 2022 testing after the American team cut ties with the Russian. He turned a remarkable seventh on the grid to 10 points in the race. It's more points than the team has scored in the previous two years combined.
There was double delight at Alfa Romeo, with new signing Valtteri Bottas qualifying sixth to line up alongside old Mercedes team-mate Hamilton and recovering late to finish sixth in the race.
Rookie team-mate Zhou Guanyu benefitted from the late-race retirements for Verstappen and Pérez, the first Chinese driver in F1 history finishing 10th and scoring points on his F1 debut.
A quick turnaround
After no races for three months, we have two in a week, with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix coming just seven days after Bahrain and just 1,500km south-west of Sakhir at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
If it feels like we were only here yesterday, you're almost right; last year's inaugural race in Saudi Arabia happened in the first week of December and featured a thrilling battle between Verstappen and Hamilton, with the title up for grabs at the fastest, most breathless street circuit on the calendar.
Another anomaly? Round two of 2022 will be, going back to last year, the fifth Grand Prix in succession held at night (Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi last year, and Bahrain this year).
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