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Verstappen qualified on pole, though Charles Leclerc, who was second on the grid, recorded the fastest time in qualifying – set in Qualifying 2 and not the all-important Qualifying 3 session.
In the race, Leclerc slipped backwards as he battled with braking issues, though Carlos Sainz in the sister car showed promising form to finish third, within touching distance of the second Red Bull Racing, Sergio Perez.
Contrasted to Ferrari’s performance in Bahrain a year ago, it was a step forward. Then, the scarlet cars fell backwards as tyre degradation hampered its race pace.
That Sainz was pressing in the closing stages on Saturday night is a positive indication that characteristic, arguably Ferrari’s biggest weakness of 2023, has been addressed.
“Last year, I spent a lot of the races, looking in my mirror, saving tyres, defending my position,” Sainz began.
“I remember at the car launch saying, ‘yeah, this year I wish we had a car to go racing, you know, and attack people and don’t care too much about the tyres and make some overtaking moves and look forward rather than look backwards’.
“It’s exactly what we got. I got an attacking race, a really good race pace and from there everything felt really good to finish P3.”
Ferrari showed well after testing, though analysis suggested Red Bull Racing had the upper hand regardless of what the timesheets might have said.
Heading into the Bahrain GP, that led to suggestions Verstappen and co could be as much as a second per lap faster that the chasing pack.
While there is no doubt the Red Bull Racing was the class of the field in Bahrain, and there was a comfortable pace advantage, there were also strong indications that it won’t necessarily be a repeat of the whitewash experienced in 2023.
“I think today was probably better than expected,” Verstappen said of his win.
“I just felt very comfortable with the car. That really showed today, so I’m very happy to kickstart the season like this, but also as a team, to have a one-two is just fantastic.
“But I also think that, in general, other teams are closer.
“Today, everything just worked really, really well, and I of course don’t expect that to happen every single grand prix in the near future.
“But still, we’ll take it, we’ll look back at it, of course, we’ll analyse it and we’ll try to improve further.”
Red Bull Racing adopted an aggressive strategy, swapping from the hard compound tyre in the middle stint for a second set of soft rubber for the final leg of the race.
“It was quite clear after testing and also practice that we needed to do what we did with the Soft being a good tyre and the Hard being the Hard,” Verstappen said.
Perez added: “It was straightforward. I think the Hard is just not performing as well as with the other teams. And we seem to be better looking after the Soft. So it worked really well to be able to save a new Soft.”
That strategic difference was not lost on Sainz.
“I think it’s interesting how they can keep the C3 Soft tyre alive for a bit longer than the rest, how they tend to overheat a bit less,” he observed.
“Maybe that’s what makes the car also not as competitive in quality and so good in the race in a track like Bahrain. Now we need more samples.
“I expect Red Bull always to be better in the race like they were last year,” he added.
“Look at the last eight races between Charles and me. We managed to do some pole positions a lot of front rows but then max in the race was pulling away massively and Checo was always able to overtake us.
“I hope that this year’s trait is not as exaggerated and we’ve done a good step forward in that sense, which already I felt today.
“But they are still ahead. So now it’s time to get our heads down and start developing this car to keep closing the gap in the race.”
It’s an encouraging start however, with Red Bull Racing facing challengers that are seemingly closer than they were this time a year ago.
“The base that we have on the car this year and the aero platform and just the car that we’ve put on track feels and drives a lot more normal than last year,” said Sainz.
“And from here, if we offset this level of downforce, you know, and we just keep adding downforce to this car, I think we can start getting closer to them.
“But we need to start doing it from now, because if not, they they’re going to start pushing and getting far away.”
