SAKHIR, Bahrain — The continued drama around Red Bull had no effect on its three-time reigning world champion as Max Verstappen routed the sphere by 22 seconds within the season-opening Formula 1 race on Saturday.
Verstappen began the Bahrain Grand Prix on pole position and was never seriously challenged on his strategy to a commanding one-two win for Red Bull with teammate Sergio Perez. Embattled team principal Christian Horner was joined before the race and in the course of the podium celebration by his former pop star wife, Geri Halliwell.
“Today went even higher than expected,” Verstappen said. “It was plenty of fun.”
Carlos Sainz Jr. was third for Ferrari after fighting hard with teammate Charles Leclerc.
Firstly of the longest ever F1 season at 24 races, Verstappen already shows signs of repeating his near-perfect record from 2023, when the Dutch driver won 19 of twenty-two races.
Bahrain was the eighth win in a row for Verstappen going back to last September. He set an F1 record of 10 consecutive wins last season.
The F1 paddock’s focus has firmly been on Horner, with Verstappen saying on Saturday his boss was “probably slightly bit distracted.”
“Obviously, it’s not been nice, a number of the unwanted attention, but the main target is now very much on the cars,” Horner said. “My focus has very much been on what’s happening on target and the result today, I believe, demonstrates where the entire team’s focus is and we move onwards.”
Horner arrived on race day hand in hand with Halliwell, also generally known as Ginger Spice of the pop group the Spice Girls, they usually celebrated together as Verstappen received his trophy. The race got here after FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem said the turmoil around Horner was “damaging the game,” in comments to the Financial Times.
On Wednesday, the team’s parent company dismissed a grievance of alleged misconduct by Horner toward a team worker. A day later during practice in Bahrain, a file alleged to contain evidence against Horner was emailed to almost 200 people within the F1 paddock, including Liberty Media, F1, the FIA, the opposite nine team principals, and multiple media outlets.
The authenticity of the files has not been verified by The Associated Press; the file got here from a generic email account.
In one other sign that Red Bull is significantly faster than another team, Perez climbed from fifth on the grid to second and faced little challenge after that.
Sainz’s third place was his first podium finish because the United States GP in October as a challenge from George Russell’s Mercedes faded.
After qualifying second, Leclerc talked of Ferrari making a “step forward” in comparison with its dismal 2023. However the Italian team couldn’t get near Red Bull on race day.
Leclerc’s challenge to Verstappen ended when the Dutch driver held the within line at the primary corner. After that, Leclerc was overtaken by Russell, Perez and his Ferrari teammate Sainz in quick succession.
Sainz, specifically, fought closely together with his teammate — after which did it again after Leclerc briefly got back ahead on the pit stop. It was Sainz’s first race because it was announced he would lose his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton for 2025.
Leclerc’s day went from bad to worse as he complained to Ferrari that the automobile was pulling sharply to the appropriate under braking in a “dangerous” way that left him unable to defend his position. Nonetheless, he later recovered to overtake Russell and finish fourth.
Russell was fifth, Lando Norris sixth for McLaren, and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton seventh after an uneventful race within the second Mercedes. Oscar Piastri of McLaren was eighth, ahead of the 2 Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
