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Bahrain GP: Miracles and mayhem in F1’s desert storm

Free-for-all: The opening lap was a stunner – and brought out a Virtual Safety Car as the Red Bulls fell by the wayside
Free-for-all: The opening lap was a stunner – and brought out a Virtual Safety Car as the Red Bulls fell by the wayside

If you’re looking for the highlights reel of the 2018 Bahrain Grand Prix, be warned – it’ll be longer than the race.

A remarkable drive to victory from Sebastian Vettel, an even more remarkable drive to fourth from Pierre Gasly and a whole bunch of own-goals and high drama peppered a race that went down to the finishing line – all the way through the field.

And, yet again, F1’s high-speed pitstops came under the microscope after a Ferrari mechanic suffered a horrible leg break when he was run over by Kimi Raikkonen’s car.

His dark materials: Vettel manages a miracle with worn-out tyres

Black magic: Sebastian Vettel managed to make his ’30-lap’ tyres last 39 laps, and took a famous victory in his 200th F1 race
Black magic: Sebastian Vettel managed to make his ’30-lap’ tyres last 39 laps, and took a famous victory in his 200th F1 race

Vettel’s victory, in his 200th grand prix, was never a sure thing, and looked ever more unlikely as the race neared an end and he tried to get every last mile out of his tyres.

READ MORE: Formula One – Raikkonen explains pit-lane incident that hospitalised mechanic

READ MORE: Formula One – Vettel holds off Bottas to win in Bahrain

READ MORE: Formula One – Hamilton rues communication issues

If truth be told, he already had got every last mile out of them – his yellow-walled soft tyres were good for 30 laps, according to manufacturer Pirelli, but they had to last 39 laps as Ferrari switched tactics mid-race.

For the last ten laps, as Vettel held off the advancing Valtteri Bottas, the Ferrari’s tyres were way past their ‘best before’ date.

Somehow, the German kept his pace just high enough, even though it was clear his Ferrari was squirming and skittish, and you could hear his rear wheels spinning up as he applied power on the exit of corners.

Finally, with a couple of laps to go, Bottas was within striking distance and we waited for either a lunge from the Mercedes or a bang from one of the Ferrari tyres – but neither came to pass.

Bottas had one half-hearted attempt at a pass, but he is too well-mannered a man to send his car barrelling down the inside of the braking zone, à la Daniel Ricciardo.

The day was Vettel’s, his 49th victory from those 200 F1 starts. But, while Ferrari will have been relieved to have seen him struggle home in first place, it was a less than stellar weekend for the Maranello team…

The perils of the pitlane

Motorsport is dangerous: Kimi Raikkonen exits his pit box, running over the leg of a mechanic in the process
Motorsport is dangerous: Kimi Raikkonen exits his pit box, running over the leg of a mechanic in the process

Raikkonen was sitting third, 6.5seconds adrift of Bottas but 20 seconds ahead of Hamilton, when Ferrari called him into the pits on lap 36.

Ferrari looked to have been duped by Mercedes into changing their planned pitstop pattern but, whether they were or not, things did not go well.

Three of Raikkonen’s wheels were changed but the left rear wouldn’t come off. While mechanics were still trying to release it, Raikkonen got the green light and drove off – gruesomely snapping the lower leg of one of his crew in the process.

Raikkonen was told to stop immediately, outside the Force India garage, while the unfortunate mechanic lay on the ground, awaiting a stretcher to take him off to be operated on.

It was the second such problem of the weekend for Ferrari – they were fined €5,000 after an unsafe release during the Friday sessions.

While Ferrari won’t be unduly troubled by another fine, they will be upset at having thrown away a third – or potentially second – place finish for Raikkonen, jeopardising Vettel’s finish in the process and, of course, leaving one of their mechanics to have his leg screwed back together by surgeons.

On the plus side, over the weekend their car looked to have the edge on Mercedes both in terms of handling and speed. And, of course, Vettel already has a maximum 50 points from the first two races of the season.

Other teams had it worse though…

Red Bull, red faces

Squeezy does it: Max Verstappen gets his elbows out in the tussle with Lewis Hamilton that put the Red Bull out of the race
Squeezy does it: Max Verstappen gets his elbows out in the tussle with Lewis Hamilton that put the Red Bull out of the race

In the week that the UK government slapped a ‘sugar tax’ on sweet drinks, Red Bull marketeers would have been hoping for some good news to distract from the sugar content of their energy drink (13 teaspoons of the white stuff in a 473ml can, since you asked). It so wasn’t to be.

Max Verstappen continued his scabby start to the 2018 season with an electrical problem on Friday, a qualifying crash on Saturday and an ill-judged tussle for tenth place with Hamilton that left the Dutchman with a puncture and a broken differential just seconds into the race.

In the cool-down room after the race, Hamilton – who had a problem-filled weekend as well but managed to finish third, thanks to some top-notch overtaking (three-in-one at one early corner) and clever strategy work – spotted a replay of the incident and commented: ‘He’s such a d***…’. Ouch.

As for team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, his car shut down with a major electrical failure shortly after Verstappen’s shenanigans, triggering a Virtual Safety Car.

Max was packed and ready to leave the circuit by the time Ferrari’s drama unfolded and he didn’t look too upset. But his team bosses will certainly have been upset – Ricciardo could do nothing about the electrical issues that knocked him out of the race, but Max was the architect of his own downfall, again.

Still, at least Red Bull’s junior team played a blinder…

Come on you underdogs. Or underbulls

Friends in high places: Pierre Gasly is congratulated on his remarkable result by Red Bull king-maker Dr Helmut Marko
Friends in high places: Pierre Gasly is congratulated on his remarkable result by Red Bull king-maker Dr Helmut Marko

We were promised plenty of action throughout the field, and action aplenty was delivered. In fact, F1 statisticians counted 42 overtakes in the first ten laps – that contrasts rather starkly with the five overtakes we saw two weeks ago in Melbourne… during the entire race.

There were some cracking battles, too many to list, and some frayed tempers too – Kevin Magnussen was less than happy with Haas team-mate Romain Grosjean for holding him up and dropped a few F-bombs to his team to make his feelings crystal clear.

In the end, K-Mag finished an impressive fifth, while Ro-Gro was down in a lowly 15th, so justice was done. But I suspect there’s a lot more fun to be had from Haas infighting this season.

The McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne came home in seventh and eighth places respectively, which was a relief to the team after what had been a fairly humiliating weekend in front of their Bahraini owners.

Even Marcus Ericsson, whose F1 career scoring haul had amounted to nine points scraped during the 2015 season, managed to finish ninth in the Alfa Romeo Sauber.

But driver of the weekend was Toro Rosso youngster Pierre Gasly, who started in a pretty unbelievable fifth position and finished in a rather special fourth.

He didn’t put a wheel wrong and will have done his future prospects no harm at all. For now, he’s sitting seventh in the Drivers’ Championship, ahead of both his extremely highly-rated F1 cousins in Red Bull (one of whom keeps crashing and one of whom is expected to leave the team).

Today’s 12 points were Gasly’s first in F1 – given that Red Bull is likely to be looking for a replacement for Ricciardo as the season draws to a close, they could be the most important points of his career.

Williams: Someone forgot to pack a parachute

Not as fast as it looks: Sergey Sirotkin on his way to a disappointing 15th place in the Williams
Not as fast as it looks: Sergey Sirotkin on his way to a disappointing 15th place in the Williams

The decline of Williams as a force in F1 has been swift and, to those of us with a soft spot for the privateers, sad.

In Bahrain they started 18th and 20th (that’s last, for the avoidance of doubt) and finished 14th and 15th (the worst performance of any team other than the hiccuping Red Bulls).

They’ve got Mercedes power, they’ve got the experience of Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe, they’ve got the money from those pay drivers Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin. And they’ve got huge problems.

Third in the Constructors’ Championship in 2014 and 15, they managed only fifth in 2016 and clung on to that place, but with fewer points, last season.

Unlike that other limping F1 warhorse McLaren, Williams show no signs of getting to grips with their pretty dire situation.

Even Sauber, reinvigorated by their new partners at Alfa Romeo, have started the season with actual points.

Williams have made it clear they value financial stability more than winning and, in the financial bear-pit that is modern F1, that’s perfectly understandable.

But if they find themselves acting as everyone’s favourite no-hopers, the grim truth is that money will leach away from the team anyway, whatever new financial rules are brought in by F1 owners Liberty.

F1 is a sport which still values its heritage – heck, Ferrari get tens of millions of pounds extra just for turning up for that very reason (and Williams themselves get a few million as a ‘heritage’ payment) – let’s hope that the Grove outfit can find a way to sort themselves out before the season gets too much older.

Williams may not race for the win these days but no one races to come last.