The calls that decided Hamilton and Verstappen's Bahrain battle

Given the astounding levels of success Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have achieved in the past seven Formula 1 seasons, it’s somewhat surprising that their latest Bahrain Grand Prix victory – and Hamilton’s 96th F1 win – was something of an underdog tale.

Mercedes had ended pre-season testing seemingly well adrift of Red Bull on pure pace and with poor car balance. When the teams arrived back in Bahrain for the 2021 race, they knew most of the obscured elements from the testing picture would finally be revealed. And Max Verstappen’s near 0.4-second pole margin over Hamilton confirmed that Red Bull was indeed the team to beat.

The race’s two main protagonists provided excellent foreshadowing of the battle to come when they eventually took the race start – each pointed slightly towards the other, anticipating an immediate challenge on the run to the race’s first corner. The start moment had been delayed by a lap after Sergio Perez had pulled the second Red Bull over on the initial formation lap after it “lost all its electrical power”, per Red Bull chief engineer, Paul Monaghan. Verstappen led the pack around again (the race length now reduced to 56 laps) while Perez, who had come “close to jumping out”, took his steering wheel on and off, which coaxed the car back into life and allowed him to take the start from the pits.

From Perez’s vantage point, a glimpse of the lead action flashed by. Verstappen and Hamilton got away in unison, with the Dutchman quickly moving to cover the inside line approaching Turn 1. Hamilton fell in behind Verstappen after the opening corners, with Valtteri Bottas then succumbing to pressure from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc as they raced out of the Turn 4 wide right-hander – the Finn having made a slightly slower getaway from third.

Max Verstappen leads at the start

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

But the race was soon neutralised thanks to Nikita Mazepin dropping his Haas on cold tyres after running onto the Turn 2 exit kerbs and spearing into the wall on the outside. The safety car appeared, which meant Verstappen again had to defend the inside line to Turn 1 when the race restarted on lap four.

It was a harder job this time as the headwind down the main straight would leave him vulnerable to attack on the longer run, even with the Honda power unit seemingly now having an edge against Mercedes. Verstappen therefore only powered back to top speed after reaching the finish line, and that, allied to his call to quickly get close to the pitwall, was enough to maintain the lead.

“Our hope going into the race was that we'd be able to put Max under a bit of pressure. Lewis did that brilliantly and was able to stay within undercut range” Andrew Shovlin

The race was briefly suspended again – this time via the virtual safety car – after Mick Schumacher’s own self-inflicted spin, Pierre Gasly knocking his front wing off against Daniel Ricciardo’s left-rear tyre, and Carlos Sainz Jr clashing with Lance Stroll at the tight Turn 10 apex that leads to onto the track’s back straight. Normal service resumed with the leaders one-third into lap five.

Soon Mercedes had a decision to make. The resulting call, and the series of subsequent choices that followed (plus one from before the race), decided how F1’s 2021 season-opener finished.

Mercedes goes aggressive with Hamilton’s strategy

Perez’s poor qualifying meant Red Bull only had one card to play in the lead fight even before the electrical gremlin had struck, but Mercedes had initially lost its two-car strategy advantage thanks to Bottas falling behind Leclerc. He battled back to third with a DRS blast at the start of lap six, but by the end of that lap he was 4.6s behind Verstappen.

Verstappen had pulled clear of DRS threat by lap five’s end, and while he continued to edge away from Hamilton, the gap had only grown to a maximum of 1.8s by the start of lap 12. At the end of the next tour, the world champion came in. Considering he, like Verstappen, had started on the medium tyre, this was a very early, and bold, move. The optimum two-stop medium-starting strategy supposedly involved staying out until lap 18, but Mercedes sensed an opportunity by coming in early.

“Our hope going into the race was that we'd be able to put Max under a bit of pressure,” explained Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. “Lewis did that brilliantly and was able to stay within undercut range.”

Max Verstappen tries to gap Lewis Hamilton

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Hamilton’s out-lap pace meant he was quickly in the position to jump Verstappen even if Red Bull called him in immediately. But Christian Horner later explained that the strategy was “very much fixed” on a conventional two-stopper. Considering how things played out, by continuing until the end of lap 17, Red Bull effectively maintained strategic impetus via the tyre off-set, even if it conceded track position and gave Hamilton a 6.6s lead when the pitstops had shaken themselves out by lap 19.

Verstappen’s pace over the next nine laps demonstrated Red Bull’s pace advantage on the day, as he closed at a rate of 0.505s per lap. But there were other factors at play too – as Shovlin explained, Hamilton had “pushed pretty hard at the start of that second stint”, and his pace therefore began to drop again, after he had seemingly stemmed the worst of the time loss between laps 23 and 25 (where Verstappen was only 0.097s faster on average). But after the pace between the leaders opened up again, Verstappen was soon within range of being able to attack Hamilton with his own undercut.

To defend this, Mercedes actually had to go aggressive again – albeit this time with a potential major advantage. Mercedes brought Hamilton in on lap 28, believing it might be able to force Red Bull to bring Verstappen in sooner than it would ideally want in order to avoid being undercut by Bottas.

Although the second Black Arrows car was 5.4s behind at the start of lap 29, such was the fresh rubber advantage that Verstappen would’ve had to pass both Bottas and Hamilton to win the race, even with a big tyre offset. Mercedes essentially tried to bait Red Bull into giving up the offset advantage by not giving Bottas a different strategy to Hamilton – which he later called “defensive instead of attacking, which I’m quite surprised by and it’s not quite normal”.

But, in any case, this plan was blown. The right-front wheel did not initially connect with the wheelnut as intended, which meant Bottas’s stop lasted 10.9s and the chance to apply the undercut was gone.

Valtteri Bottas was hampered by a slow pitstop

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Red Bull’s pre-race tyre usage gets questioned

While Mercedes was trying to lure Red Bull off its pre-race plan, another decision made earlier in the weekend was working against Verstappen. He had come into the race with only one set of the hard tyres available, to the two for both Mercedes drivers. This left him at a slight disadvantage, as Pirelli explained the medium compound he’d stayed on at his first stop had “a slightly reduced performance gap” compared to the white-walled alternatives (the soft was never an option given its fragile nature on Bahrain’s abrasive track surface).

Essentially, had Verstappen been able to run the hard tyres during his second stint, he may well have been able to produce faster laps and done so for longer when Hamilton came in early as part of Mercedes’ ploy to get all the leading cars on pretty much the same length final stint (or considering a three-stopper). And it was the length of the final stint that ultimately led to the end result.

“We didn’t really have a lot of flexibility in the strategy,” Verstappen later reflected. “So maybe also there we could have done better in choosing our tyres throughout practice.”

Hamilton’s final stint driving choices become pivotal

“It’s not my first rodeo,” Hamilton would say of his final stint performance, where he had to nurse his final set of hards over 28 laps, knowing that pushing too hard would mean Verstappen would get by easier when it came to the endgame. At the same time, as Shovlin explained, he couldn’t “give the tyres too easy a time because then you haven't got enough of a gap”.

"I was thinking, ‘Jeez, there’s just no way we’re going to be able to pull this off, with these tyres dropping off’ – particularly in the last 10-15 laps" Lewis Hamilton

This phase of the race was classic Hamilton. He questioned Mercedes’ decision to bring him in with half the race to do as the final stint and told race engineer Peter Bonnington that a desired low 1m34s lap time average would mean he’d risk not having enough performance come the inevitable battle. Mercedes soon left things to Hamilton’s tyre management judgement – one of his greatest strengths.

“Given the car that we have in terms of looking after the tyres, and we’d stopped short and the second one even shorter, I was thinking, ‘Jeez, there’s just no way we’re going to be able to pull this off, with these tyres dropping off’ – particularly in the last 10-15 laps,” Hamilton explained.

“I was trying to find the right balance: not taking too much out of the tyres but not doing the same times as [Verstappen, still in the lead with a stop to make]. I just tried to remain positive and try to be just as inch-perfect as I possibly could.”

Max Verstappen tries to extend his middle stint on the medium tyres

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Turn 4 track limits enforcement becomes the focus

While Hamilton was putting in yet another tyre management masterclass, one element of what he was doing was being questioned off track.

Testing talk about track limits violations at Turn 4 had become incredibly tedious given the lack of sporting competition, but the issue was rightly in the spotlight last weekend. The FIA had initially decided the corner’s outside would not be monitored in regards to setting a lap time, but after FP1 it was decided that for the rest of practice and qualifying any driver going behind the kerbs would lose that lap.

Crucially, for the race the situation returned to not being “monitored with regard to setting a lap time, as the defining limits are the artificial grass and the gravel trap in that location,” according to race director Michael Masi’s briefing notes. At the same time, Article 27.3 of F1’s sporting rules would apply – which meant drivers couldn’t earn a lasting advantage by leaving the track.

In the laps following his final pitstop, Hamilton had been regularly running beyond the kerbs exiting Turn 4 – and it appears, per Masi’s instructions, that this was only allowed if an advantage was not being gained. So Red Bull queried the situation.

“We could see that as soon as Mercedes started to push, they just used that part of the track,” said Horner. “And we questioned with race control: ‘If that's the case, can we do it?’ Because when you're in that nip and tuck battle, there's a two-tenth advantage using that part of the circuit, so they did it lap after lap. The race director then asked them to respect the limits, otherwise they’d get a black and white flag.”

Toto Wolff said his squad saw things this way: “At the beginning of the race it was said track limits in Turn 4 wouldn't be sanctioned. And then in the race suddenly we heard that if you would continue to run wide it would be seen as an advantage and could cause a potential penalty. Which we debated with the race director, but there's nothing we could have done.”

It appears that Masi’s later clarification that “nothing changed during the race, nothing changed at all” stands up (Hamilton stated “they basically changed their minds” mid-race) – because running wide at Turn 4 was allowed as long as an advantage wasn’t established. Based on reading Masi’s notes, F1’s sporting rules and Horner’s explanation, it seems at the time of writing that when Red Bull made the case that Hamilton was gaining by running wide, Masi instructed Mercedes to warn him off. All very confusing, all very crucial to the race result.

Lewis Hamilton is informed of the gap to the pursuing Max Verstappen

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Verstappen’s point of attack left him vulnerable

Hamilton was annoyed by the lap 37 instruction to revert to the Turn 4 qualifying line, but would later say the decision “helped me look after my tyres actually, so I’m grateful for the call”.

By this stage, Verstappen’s middle stint was nearly over, and he eventually came in at the end of lap 39, setting up a 16-lap chase to the flag. From the end of lap 40, Verstappen had to close a 7.6s gap, which he did at a rate of 0.591s per lap against Hamilton over the next 12 tours – the pair now back on the same rubber, the hards.

Verstappen’s initial pace was scorching, his first four flying laps were low-mid 1m33s vs Hamilton’s mid-low 1m34s. Although he then reined it in, he was still gaining significantly each lap, mainly in the middle sector where the Red Bull’s car advantage was greatest.

He got to 0.8s adrift and within DRS range at the end of lap 51, the tour on which Hamilton locked up heavily and went off at the exit of the double left Turns 9/10 complex. The next time by it was 0.5s and then the race’s pivotal moment occurred.

Given how the few remaining miles unfolded, Verstappen may have been better off waiting to make the attack elsewhere, or at least once there was no traffic involved

As Hamilton ran behind Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo on the short straight to Turn 4, Verstappen made his move – having been warded off a Turn 1 lunge by Hamilton’s careful car positioning on the main straight. With Giovinazzi slowing on the inside, the outside was Verstappen’s only choice, but he had the momentum to stay ahead. The trouble was, he’d slipped too wide and gone beyond the contentious Turn 4 exit kerbs.

No pass was going to be easy considering the Red Bull was best in the technical middle sector and the wind was hampering Verstappen’s grip in slow corners, crucial for pulling close on traction to make a move – plus he had to drive around a suspected differential problem Horner said, “seemed to compromise his first sector compared to the Mercedes”. But given how the few remaining miles unfolded, Verstappen may have been better off waiting to make the attack elsewhere, or at least once there was no traffic involved.

Max Verstappen prepares to mount another attack on Lewis Hamilton after ceding position

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

How Verstappen’s sportsmanship shaped the final laps

Hamilton immediately radioed in his observation of Verstappen completing the overtake beyond the track limits and Red Bull’s shouts of triumph quickly became an order to cede the position back, as Masi stuck to his pre-race word to “go on the radio and suggest to the team that they immediately relinquish that position”. Verstappen pulled over on the back straight and let Hamilton by without comment, but later radioed Red Bull to ask “why didn't you let me go? I could have easily got the five seconds. I prefer to lose like that than to be second like this.”

Hindsight’s benefit means we can assess that such a move would not necessarily have won the race, because overtaking off-track is not a fixed five-second penalty, and the stewards would have considered that Verstappen had ignored Masi’s suggestion. Simply put, he might have been hit with a greater penalty than any likely advantage he’d have gained.

But ceding the position where Verstappen did still cost him another chance to win. The tyre life he’d used to close in and get ahead had been wasted, and he lost crucial momentum catching a big snap of oversteer at Turn 13 on the same lap as his botched pass. From there, although Verstappen closed back in on Hamilton, he never got another chance.

“I just didn’t have the tyres any more to attack,” Verstappen explained. “Of course, my tyres were younger, but with these cars, that advantage goes away very quickly once you get within 1.5s and with the wind in the direction it was, it was not helping. With these cars, the last three years, it is very important to have track position and we gave that up today.”

Hamilton counted three moments on the final tour that he thought would still cost him the win – “oversteer out of Turn 10, nervousness out of 11, snap oversteer in 13, which is a really bad one” – but he held on. His victory margin was 0.7s, with Bottas claiming third 37.3s adrift after a stop two laps from home for fresh tyres, to successfully claim the fastest lap bonus point on the final tour.

“I’ve still got it,” Hamilton told his jubilant team as he returned to the pits. And that is one of two key takeaways from a thrilling season-opener. The world champion can still make the difference in a slower car, but Red Bull’s title potential seems clear.

Race winner Lewis Hamilton celebrates with his team in parc ferme

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images