The warning bells from Russell and Perez's Sakhir brilliance

Formula 1's bosses have long championed that one of the key aims of the future is to make drivers the stars again. However much fans love the battle between teams, and the rampant technology development that makes F1 cars so sophisticated and fascinating, it's the gladiatorial moments of wheel-to-wheel action that really get people talking.

In years to come, we will remember Sergio Perez's brilliant charge from the back of the field to take his maiden win at the Sakhir Grand Prix, and we will recall that defining moment when George Russell pulled a decisive overtaking move on Valtteri Bottas at the Sakhir chicane. These are the moments where the drivers surpass the quality of their cars, and that's always been a fundamental thing in driving forward the sport's popularity.

But for all the huge wave of interest surrounding the heroes that were made on the Bahrain outer loop last weekend, Russell and Perez's brilliance has also set some alarm bells ringing about where F1 stands right now. The fact that F1's newest grand prix winner may be left on the beach next year, and its newest young hero may face another year of battling to get out of Q1, is not a good optic for a series that is supposed to be doing all it can to make the drivers the real heroes.

PLUS: The unseen mistake that nearly cost Perez victory in Russell's race

Sure there is always a balancing act to play, and F1 would not be F1 if it was a one-make formula where all the cars were identical. But it is clear that, at the moment, the differences between the top teams and the bottom teams are such that good drivers cannot make much of a difference.

If your car is more than one second adrift of the top, then it does not matter if you put a superstar like Lewis Hamilton in, or simply find a driver who brings the biggest budget, that gap is not going to get overturned. And that's ultimately a bad thing for F1. As Carlos Sainz Jr said last weekend, the field spread of talent in F1 is probably just three tenths.

Speaking about Russell's star showing, he said: "It just demonstrates what Formula 1 is missing out from, by having cars that are two seconds apart when pretty much the whole grid could be within three tenths of a second because of the talent there is on the grid. It's a shame that a guy that is fighting for P15 every weekend, suddenly when you put him in a race winning car, he's 20 thousandths off pole.

"If anything for me, this demonstrates what F1 is missing out from, creating a much more incredible show if you could level the playing field a bit more and allow the driver to make more of a difference. At the moment, when you are one second off the pace or two seconds off the pace you cannot really see the last two tenths from a driver that makes a difference."

Indeed, if this were a series where those few tenths can make the real difference - and we are talking about between winning races and not winning races - then F1 wouldn't be in a situation where some of its best drivers are left with either no hope of winning or no hope of even racing.

Rewind to the 1980's and 1990's, and performances like Perez and Russell put in last weekend would have resulted in contracts being pored over right now and lawyers being drafted in to try to get some seat shuffling done. Just look what happened when Michael Schumacher made such an impact on his F1 debut with Jordan at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.

That we could face a 2021 season where Russell may struggle to score points, and Perez may not even be at a single race, is just not right

Benetton boss Flavio Briatore just knew the kind of difference that a driver like Schumacher could make to his team and the lawyers were sent to work. Poring over a letter of intent that Schumacher had signed with Jordan prior to his appearance in Belgium, a get out was found thanks to intent being given to sign a driver agreement with Jordan rather than the agreement that would have pinned him to the Silverstone team until the end of 1993.

PLUS: The true story of how Schumacher escaped Jordan

In the end, an agreement was to arrange a swap with Benetton, and Schumacher was set on his way to a career that resulted in seven world championship titles.

Sure, Perez and Russell aren't debutants who have caused a big shock straight out of the box, but they have still proven themselves to be delivering at a level where, if the sport was equal enough, they can make a difference. Perez should be a no-brainer for a competitive front-running race seat. F1's rules and financial disparity means a team like Williams shouldn't be hindered in its task to take on the big guns.

So that we could face a 2021 season where Russell may struggle to score points, and Perez may not even be at a single race, is just not right. Any team that Russell drives for needs to know that the rules and financial equality in the sport are such that having someone like him on board means there is always the sniff of a special result on a Sunday.

Equally, any team going for money or image over Perez's talent should know that the consequences of that are the chance of not having the giant-killing performances that we witnessed on Sunday.

Talent from those in the cockpit should always outweigh development budgets and more cash heading to the aero department. The hope has to be that F1's 2022 rules, especially the prize money structure and budget cap, do serve quickly to level the playing field and making things a lot closer.

But F1 has also not done itself any favours in helping drivers with the unintended consequences of its ever stricter testing bans. The rampant costs of teams testing between every race as happened in the past needed to be slashed, and a nice balance had been found a few years ago with some decent pre-season and in-season running.

But the complete cut back on in-season tests, and now a reduction to just three days of pre-reason running (that's just one-and-a-half days for each driver), has left young drivers with scant opportunity to get the mileage they need. And for all the good intention that there was behind the young driver test in Abu Dhabi to ensure the new wave of talent was not ignored, the event has turned into a bit of a farce.

PLUS: The challenges in getting a new driver up to speed in F1

Renault's push to allow Fernando Alonso to run was fully understandable, but seems quite illogical when drivers swapping teams - like Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, and Sebastian Vettel - are left with just one and a half days of running to get ready for 2021.

The best scenario of course would have been to arrange a 'new driver' test. Give anyone swapping teams or who hasn't raced full-time for a team the chance to get to know their new surroundings; get some buzz going, and have a day where the talk isn't of tyre deltas - but it's of drivers.

The Sakhir GP was an event where driving talent spoke volumes. And in F1, there still seems to be quite a way to go before that is the norm rather than the exception.