Mercedes driver George Russell summed up what many people in Formula 1 felt after Max Verstappen’s imperious victory for Red Bull in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
“Max is the favourite,” said Russell, who finished fifth, behind a Red Bull one-two and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. “I don’t think anyone is going to be fighting him for the championship this year, but I hope some people are going to be battling for victories here or there.”
Verstappen’s imperious win – which was widely expected, and did little to take the focus of the weekend off the allegations surrounding his team principal Christian Horner – set a chilling tone for anyone hoping for a more competitive season than last year.
Fresh off the most dominant campaign in F1 history, Verstappen was on average about 0.8 seconds per lap quicker than anyone else in the race – including his team-mate Sergio Perez. His fastest lap was nearly 1.5secs faster than the next best, albeit set on softer tyres.
“Max is not in a different league; he’s in a different galaxy,” said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. “The performance is extraordinary.”
But there were at least some reasons for optimism. Not hope that he can be challenged for the championship, realistically; but hope that he can be challenged in races from time to time.
For one, Verstappen had only narrowly beaten Leclerc for pole position, and would have been second on the grid had the Ferrari driver repeated in the top 10 shoot-out the lap he managed in the second session.
For another, Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez was only four seconds up the road from the man in third place, whereas last year the margin was much larger than that, even before Leclerc’s retirement with engine failure handed third to Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.
And then there was the condition of the other teams – Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren are all in a much better place with their cars at the start of this season than they were last year.
Verstappen’s view – which was shared by some other teams – was that Bahrain played into Red Bull’s hands. The track is particularly brutal on tyres. Gentle tyre use was Red Bull’s biggest single advantage last year, and the new car is showing similar strengths. Other tracks are not as tough on the rubber, so in theory rivals should be more competitive there.
“In general, other teams are closer,” Verstappen said, “but everything just worked really, really well and I don’t expect that to happen every single grand prix in the near future.
“Here we were particularly good on the deg, but I do expect in race pace everyone is closer in Jeddah (for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next weekend).”
Wolff was downbeat, despite recognising the fact that the field had been closer to the second Red Bull than last year.
“That is maybe the silver lining I can see,” he said, “but it is very thin and far away and I almost can’t see that far.”
But others saw more reason for optimism, even within his own team.
Lewis Hamilton had a difficult race after a poor qualifying left him ninth on the grid. Mercedes started running into overheating problems after a handful of laps, and Russell and Hamilton had to turn their engines down, costing an estimated 0.5secs a lap in performance.
They did not think that would have been enough to challenge the Ferraris for the podium but they took encouragement nonetheless from the fact that their car is at least nice to drive this year – unlike in 2023 – and simply lacks performance.
“Red Bull are going to win everything for a while,” Hamilton said. “But what I feel is that for the past two years we have had all these problems and we have spent several races undoing all the problems.
“As opposed to now, we have a platform we can start adding to. Now it’s a building process and we’re a great team.”
Ferrari’s cause for optimism
At Ferrari, they were feeling comparatively pleased with themselves. Last year, they were more or less lost at this stage, their car full of vices, to the extent that they were struggling to see a development direction with it.
Even so, by the end of the year, in qualifying they were on a par with Red Bull – beating them to pole in three of the final five races.
“The positive is we have compensated 50% of the gap to Red Bull,” said team principal Frederic Vasseur. “The negative is that it is not enough and we had again too many issues during the weekend.”
Vasseur said he believed it would only be after the next two races, with Australia following Saudi Arabia, before a true pattern of the season would emerge.
“We will have a better picture on the global situation after Melbourne, probably,” he said. “Before then it will be difficult to have a clear picture of the championship, but if we compare one year ago we were one second away and today 0.5secs.
“We have 24 races. Last year we did five poles after last seven races or something like this (actually five in the last nine). It is a very long season. You have room for development.
“We were able to fight for pole, the deg in Bahrain is always huge and we will have other occasion to start from pole and to win races. We will continue to push like hell. I am quite pleased with the step we made from 12 months ago and I will continue to push, don’t worry.”
Sainz shared his optimism – but added a caveat.
“I knew the Red Bulls today were going to be very, very difficult to beat,” the Spaniard said. “So to keep up with one of them and have the possibility to fight is already a good surprise.
“We were at one of their strongest tracks of the season, with very high tyre deg at the rear. Hopefully, when we go to a more front-limited track and maybe better Tarmac, our car will come alive and we will be able to mount a better challenge on Max for the win.
“From here, if 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.”