World champion Verstappen starts season with great deception

Max Verstappen has started the new season in Formula 1 with a big disappointment. He retired a few laps before the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix with a defect in his Red Bull. The world champion was second behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari at the time.

The Monegask won the opening race of the new season. His Spanish teammate Carlos Sainz completed Ferrari’s success with second place. Lewis Hamilton drove quite surprisingly to third place in his Mercedes.

The 24-year-old Limburger fought a breathtaking duel with Leclerc on the desert circuit of Sakhir, who had started from pole position and who constantly managed to fend off Verstappen attacks. The Dutchman often tried, but he couldn’t manage to take the lead and often complained about the on-board radio about his tires, the steering of his car and the hybrid system in the RB18.

New Age

The Bahrain race was the first in the “new era” of the premier class, where the cars run with bigger tires and very different aerodynamics; intended to make the cars move closer together and make overtaking easier. The public was not disappointed. The first race of the season was full of action and overtaking.

Most of the spectacle took place in laps 17 to 19, in which Verstappen and Leclerc fought fiercely for the lead and took turns overtaking each other. On the third attempt, Verstappen braked and in the smoke of the overheated rubber Leclerc took the lead again.

More careful

Verstappen seemed to give in and also reacted agitated to requests from the team to be more careful with his tires. He went into the pit lane again for new tires, but shortly after he was back on track Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri caught fire. The Frenchman managed to escape the flames, but the safety car did come on track and the field clumped together again.

It seemed an excellent opportunity for Verstappen to attack the lead again in the final phase, but three laps before the end he gave up with what appeared to be a steering problem. Disillusioned as he parked his Red Bull in the pit lane, the Ferraris took first and second place. In addition, they also benefited from a crash on the last lap of Sergio Pérez, with which Red Bull recorded two retirements in the first race of the year.