What a wonderful race for Red Bull fans! And quite a terrible one for everyone else. Here’s a breakdown of the top five teams at the Bahrain Grand Prix for everyone who wants to relive the misery and wallow in the ominous implications of the first Grand Prix of the 2024 season.

Red Bull

Finishing with a one-two everyone saw coming, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez dominated the race. Verstappen particularly continued his tradition of utter dominance with a 22.457-second lead over Pérez. With their new vertical sidepod inlets inspired by the failed Mercedes zero-pod design, Red Bull has clearly informed the rest of the grid of who this year’s WCC winner will be (ESPN.com). Neda Taskov, a Ferrari and Mercedes fan, lamented that “unfortunately, Red Bull will likely continue to dominate with Ferrari and Mercedes behind them.” 

Ferrari

Ferrari’s SF-24 is clearly a step up from the previous year’s car, with Carlos Sainz nabbing a podium and Charles Leclerc in fourth. Sports Illustrated reported that Ferrari decided to retain the pull-rod suspension–unlike many other teams that opted for a push-rod–which cast doubt on the competitiveness of their car. Nonetheless, Leclerc’s Q2 lap–which was faster than Verstappen’s pole lap–proved them wrong.

Rebekah Tate, another Formula 1 fan, was “happy and excited to see Carlos place third, especially with the uncertainty surrounding his seat in the coming year.” Following Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari in 2025, Sainz will be left without a seat. It seems as though he has proven himself to Ferrari by getting himself up on the Bahrain podium.

Leclerc, on the other hand, struggled considerably as his brakes, according to his interview with Autosport, had a 100-degree temperature split between the front right and front left tires. Tate noted the “overtake Leclerc had on Russell” towards the end of the race as “Leclerc had been having problems with his brakes so to see him push through and get ahead of Russell was amazing.”

Leclerc explained that this issue “was obviously very costly in terms of time, especially in the first half of the race, where it was extremely difficult to drive. But [he doesn’t] expect it to happen again this weekend” (RaceFans).

Mercedes

Mercedes had several issues this weekend with Lewis Hamilton reporting a broken seat over the team radio and George Russell being forced to handle “a power unit issue caused by a cooling miscalculation, which required lifting-and-coasting measures to combat rising temperatures” (Motorsport).

Tate expressed disappointment with Lewis’ finish “but seeing as there were difficulties with his car, nothing more really could’ve been done.”

These woes forced Mercedes to take less-than-stellar positions with a P5 for Russell and a P7 for Hamilton with Lando Norris splitting the two. It’s clear that Mercedes is a step below Ferrari and has to focus now on its fight with McLaren.

McLaren

McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri landed themselves in P6 and P8 respectively–a largely expected result for a team that often struggles at the Bahrain GP. 

Norris noted that despite these past issues, “the fact we’re so close to Mercedes is still a good sign for us that at some tracks we’ll be able to be ahead. I’m confident, the team is doing a good job and it’s a good starting position” (Autosport).

Finishing under 2 seconds behind Russell–who, again, had engine issues–cements the idea that the McLaren-Mercedes battle will be a major storyline this season. Drive to Survive producers likely have an episode planned already.

Aston Martin

The fifth team in the pecking order for the WCC is Aston Martin, whose Fernando Alonso took ninth while Lance Stroll came in tenth. While the positions are not far apart, Alonso finished with about a 19-second lead over his teammate. It seems that not much has changed over winter break with the skill gap between the two Aston Martin drivers.

Alonso had hoped for “a Safety Car and cheap pit-stop, but the race passed without any deployments, meaning he was left to take the flag 1:14.887s behind race-winner Max Verstappen” (RacingNews365).

Takeaways

These final positions in the Bahrain Grand Prix are a clear forecast of what the 2024 season entails: a Red Bull cruise to victory, a solid Ferrari second, a McLaren-Mercedes battle, and Aston Martin as the best of the rest. Yet, of course, only time will tell what will actually occur.