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Lewis Hamilton’s surprise win for Mercedes at the 2019 Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday was the latest present from rival Ferrari, served on a silver plate and wrapped with a red ribbon.
Hamilton won at a canter despite the Silver Arrows lagging behind the red Ferraris for most of the race.
First, Sebastian Vettel imploded under pressure from Hamilton, spiralling out of contention some 20 laps from the end as the pair of five-time Formula One champions fought for what seemed like second place.
Then it got even worse for Ferrari as race leader Charles Leclerc’s engine started losing power. “It was just a loss of power, completely,” Leclerc said. “There were no signs before.”
It was the Formula One equivalent of an open-goal in soccer for Hamilton, who took full advantage before getting a post-race hug from former Manchester United and England star David Beckham, who waved the chequered flag on Hamilton’s 74th career win. Only seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher has more with 91.
Leclerc finished third behind Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes somehow clinched a second straight 1-2 from two races, having been slower than Ferrari in pre-season testing and in Bahrain. Ferrari looked in ominous form after dominating every practice session and every section of qualifying on the 5.4km desert circuit.
“We were lucky. Ferrari out-performed us from the get-go,” Hamilton said. “It definitely feels weird. But what can you do? You can’t deny yourself victory.”
Then, to rub further salt into Vettel’s wounds, Hamilton heaped praise on Leclerc, who drove brilliantly to secure pole position on Saturday and was only denied victory by problems with his car.
“Charles was incredible this weekend. He was so much faster than his teammate,” Hamilton said. “He has a bright future ahead of him.”
A despondent Leclerc thought he was going to become the third-youngest winner of an F1 race – after Max Verstappen and Vettel – having already become the second youngest to qualify on pole after Vettel.
“You have a dream since childhood, your first win in Formula One,” the 21-year-old driver from Monaco said.
That dream may not have been realised in Bahrain but it soon will be if Ferrari can sort out his engine problems.
Red Bull’s Verstappen placed fourth with Vettel crossing in fifth.
In sixth place came McLaren’s young gun Lando Norris who gives renewed hope to the former champions who have languished behind the leading pack in recent seasons.
Partly-owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, the green shoots of recovery look on track and teammate Carlos Sainz was unfortunate to come unstuck after a clash with Verstappen.
Leclerc only finished third because the safety car came out near the end after the Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg went off track.
Under safety car rules drivers must hold position. Verstappen could not attack and missed out on a second straight podium, after third place at the season-opening Australian GP two weeks ago behind Hamilton and Bottas.
Leclerc picked up a bonus point for posting the fastest lap. But Ferrari will know third and fifth spots were simply not good enough, after fourth and fifth in Australia.
“We’ll check everything we can,” Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said.
Ferrari last won the drivers’ title in 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen, and its constructors’ title the following year remains its last. In the past two seasons, Ferrari challenged strongly before badly fading in the second part of the season after a series of mishaps, strategy errors and mistakes by Vettel.
Ferrari replaced struggling team principal Maurizio Arrivabene with Binotto, formerly Ferrari chief technical officer. But he’s in much the same position: with a fast car and a driver – Vettel – appearing prone to problems and errors. Heading into the Chinese GP in two weeks’ time, Ferrari has to find a way to stop throwing away points and Vettel needs to regain control.
Vettel did well to overtake Leclerc at the start of Sunday’s race, but Leclerc reclaimed his lead soon after with an audacious move on the German driver’s outside.
It looked even more like being Ferrari’s day when Hamilton went too wide on Lap 20 and drifted further behind Leclerc. Vettel overtook him on Lap 23 to put Ferrari 1-2.
As it turned out, Hamilton needn’t have worried much because another Ferrari flop was on the way.
It happened on Lap 39 of 57.
Vettel initially fended off Hamilton’s attack well, but then lost control and span his car, prompting hands on heads in the Ferrari garage.
Question marks were raised in 2017 and 2018 about Vettel’s repeated mistakes under pressure , particularly when he crashed while leading the German GP last year.
Leclerc made no mistakes, but instead was undone by his car.
Panic crept into his voice with about 10 laps left. “Something strange with the engine,” Leclerc said, his lead rapidly dwindling. “What’s happening?”
He soon knew.
Hamilton surged past him for his first Bahrain win since 2015 and third overall.
Bottas leads the title race, ahead of Hamilton 44-43, because of his fastest lap in Melbourne.
Simon Cole, Chief Engineer Trackside, accepted the Constructors’ trophy on behalf of the team.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport (87 points) lead Ferrari (48 points) by 39 points in the Constructors’ Championship
Simon Cole, Chief Engineer Trackside, accepted the Constructors’ trophy on behalf of the team.
Winner Lewis Hamilton
It was very tricky out there today and I had to give it everything I had. We were very, very lucky to get this 1-2, Ferrari outperformed us all weekend. Ultimately you want to have a real fight and want to pass someone because you’re quicker, so it feels a bit weird and you can’t quite believe your luck in these scenarios.
I have been in similar situations and I know how it feels, but Charles did a great job all weekend long and has a beautiful, bright future ahead of him. We’ve only had two races; one where we were rapid and far ahead, one where Ferrari had the upper hand.
It’s hard to say how the next races are going to pan out, but I anticipate that it will be a tough fight and that it will be a back and forth between the two teams.
We need to keep working hard to see where we went wrong this weekend and to see where we can improve the car. But as we saw again today, reliability also plays an important role, so we need to keep working on all areas. We’ll take the points we got and move forward to China.
Runner-up
Valtteri Bottas
This was not an easy race, the car was very difficult to drive and the conditions were very tricky with the gusty winds today which made the car very unpredictable. I had a good start and managed to get to P2, but in the next lap the wind caught me up going into Turn 1, so I lost the position again and ultimately fell back to fourth after a battle with Lewis.
After that it was actually a relatively lonely race for me at points, I didn’t see anybody; but I think it was probably very exciting from the outside with many unexpected moments.
Ferrari were very strong again in the race as they were all weekend. But luck was on our side today, which was a welcome change for me personally after all the bad luck I experienced last year.
On the other hand our car was very reliable which ultimately won us the race. It was a tough race for Charles, but he did a great job all weekend and I’m sure his time will come. We’re leaving Bahrain with lots of points but also a lot of work to do for China.
Mercedes team boss
Toto Wolff
Charles was very unfortunate today; he was the quickest guy out there and should’ve won the race. But on the other side that’s racing; sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are unlucky – in my experience it all weighs out in the end.
Lewis drove a strong race. He fought a fight with a weapon that maybe wasn’t on his opponents’ level, but he managed to stay close to Vettel and win that battle on track, which was one of the key moments for the victory. Valtteri had a tougher day in the office, he was struggling with the tyres on the very abrasive asphalt here in Bahrain.
We’re walking away with 43 points from this weekend, but it is clear that we were very fortunate and that it was our reliability, not our pace that won us the race.
We are lacking straight line speed which is very important in China. So we need to stick our heads together and analyse why we were struggling with our pace both in qualifying and in the race. It’s a very close fight and we need to make sure to bring our A game in order to be competitive in Shanghai.
