SAKHIR, Bahrain — The continued drama round Pink Bull had no impact on its three-time reigning world champion as Max Verstappen routed the sphere by 22 seconds within the season-opening Components 1 race on Saturday.
Verstappen began the Bahrain Grand Prix on pole place and was by no means significantly challenged on his strategy to a commanding one-two win for Pink Bull with teammate Sergio Perez. Embattled workforce principal Christian Horner was joined earlier than the race and in the course of the podium celebration by his former pop star spouse, Geri Halliwell.
“Right now went even higher than anticipated,” Verstappen stated. “It was plenty of enjoyable.”
Carlos Sainz Jr. was third for Ferrari after combating laborious with teammate Charles Leclerc.
Firstly of the longest ever F1 season at 24 races, Verstappen already reveals indicators of repeating his near-perfect document from 2023, when the Dutch driver received 19 of twenty-two races.
Bahrain was the eighth win in a row for Verstappen going again to final September. He set an F1 document of 10 consecutive wins final season.
The F1 paddock’s focus has firmly been on Horner, with Verstappen saying on Saturday his boss was “most likely a bit bit distracted.”
“Clearly, it’s not been nice, a number of the undesirable consideration, however the focus is now very a lot on the automobiles,” Horner stated. “My focus has very a lot been on what’s happening on monitor and the end result as we speak, I feel, demonstrates the place the entire workforce’s focus is and we transfer onwards.”
Horner arrived on race day hand in hand with Halliwell, also called Ginger Spice of the pop group the Spice Ladies, and so they celebrated collectively as Verstappen acquired his trophy. The race got here after FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem stated the turmoil round Horner was “damaging the game,” in feedback to the Monetary Occasions.
On Wednesday, the workforce’s guardian firm dismissed a grievance of alleged misconduct by Horner towards a workforce worker. A day later throughout follow in Bahrain, a file alleged to comprise proof towards Horner was emailed to almost 200 folks within the F1 paddock, together with Liberty Media, F1, the FIA, the opposite 9 workforce principals, and a number of media retailers.
The authenticity of the information has not been verified by The Related Press; the file got here from a generic e-mail account.
In one other signal that Pink Bull is considerably sooner than every other workforce, Perez climbed from fifth on the grid to second and confronted little problem after that.
Sainz’s third place was his first podium end since the US GP in October as a problem from George Russell’s Mercedes pale.
After qualifying second, Leclerc talked of Ferrari making a “step ahead” in comparison with its dismal 2023. However the Italian workforce could not get near Pink Bull on race day.
Leclerc’s problem to Verstappen ended when the Dutch driver held the within line on the first nook. After that, Leclerc was overtaken by Russell, Perez and his Ferrari teammate Sainz in fast succession.
Sainz, particularly, fought intently together with his teammate — after which did it once more after Leclerc briefly bought again forward on the pit cease. It was Sainz’s first race because it was introduced he would lose his Ferrari seat to Lewis Hamilton for 2025.
Leclerc’s day went from unhealthy to worse as he complained to Ferrari that the automotive was pulling sharply to the correct below braking in a “harmful” manner that left him unable to defend his place. Nevertheless, he later recovered to overhaul Russell and end 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, forward of the 2 Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.