The F1 2024 questions the Bahrain GP didn't answer

It’s the hope that gets you. In the case of last Saturday’s 2024 Formula 1 season opener in Bahrain, it was the hope that someone, anyone, might be able to make a stab at challenging Red Bull’s polesitting triple world champion Max Verstappen for victory. 

PLUS: The laps that underpinned Verstappen's crushing Bahrain GP win

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, starting alongside, naturally had the best chance. Sergio Perez had already blown his victory hopes with yet another underwhelming qualifying performance in a car that is obviously already the class of the 2024 field. And Leclerc had no constructors’ championship outcome considerations to enter his mind as he did at the final events of 2023 that also featured this front row: Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi.

But, with Verstappen launching the better of the pair, Leclerc’s speculative look around the outside of the RB20 at Bahrain’s first corner was just never going to cut it. Not even the new rule allowing DRS usage from lap two could save that race; Leclerc’s brake cooling problem already apparent to the Monegasque. Race over, already.

Verstappen simply took off to score his 55th F1 win and eighth in a row, with a commanding 22.5s margin over the recovering Perez and 25.1s in hand over Ferrari’s less hobbled challenger, Carlos Sainz. But yet, there were elements of that snoozefest that mean F1 fans can keep faith in the 2024 campaign. For now, at least.

This is not to say Red Bull is definitely beatable in this weekend’s Jeddah race. Nor that it is not the overwhelming favourite to rack up another title double in 2024. But in the Bahrain race, there were a few hints that the field, and therefore competitive picture, are closer this time around.

At least, there are questions that remain unanswered on the true pecking order. For a start, Verstappen himself says: “In general, other teams are closer. I just think that today everything just worked really well, and I don't expect that to happen every single grand prix in the near future.

“But still, we’ll take it. We’ll look back at it, of course, we’ll analyse it and we'll try to improve further.”

Ferrari made a solid start to the 2024 campaign with a car that seems competitive

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Is Ferrari really in a much better place than 2023?

There is something to be said for Fred Vasseur’s point that his Ferrari team “compensated 50% of the gap with Red Bull in the race, compared to one year ago” in Bahrain. After all, Sainz was 48.1s down in the same race in 2023, beaten by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to boot. Leclerc was the Scuderia’s main challenger that day, of course, but was 24.4s behind and with 17 laps left when he retired from last year’s opener. At least this time both Ferraris made the finish.

But Sainz’s latest Bahrain gap was registered with an SF-24 that was also giving its driver major braking inconsistency issues. How much closer he or Leclerc might’ve been able to be to Verstappen without that issue is academic now.

PLUS: 2024 Bahrain GP driver ratings

From Sainz’s “in testing you never put yourself in 10 laps consecutive behind four cars getting all the hot air and the brakes never cool down” comment, we can suggest this situation occurred due to Ferrari going too aggressive on its brake cooling duct size. But logic suggests Ferrari would’ve been closer had it not had that problem.

"I think we will still qualify maybe ahead of what maybe our true position is, but at least we're not degrading and defending like crazy like we were doing last year" Carlos Sainz

Ultimately, it meant F1 never got to see the true scale of the team’s progress on improving its in-race tyre degradation deficit to Red Bull on “the most rear-limited track of the season, the highest degradation”, per Sainz. But the rest of the Spaniard’s comment here is revealing on his and his team’s new confidence in its 2024 package.

“[To] do an overtaking, attacking race for me is a relief and it gives me a feeling that we will be able to do this more often this year,” said Sainz. “It doesn't mean we will do it every race at all – because I still think one of our strongest parts of our car is qualifying. So, I think we will still qualify maybe ahead of what maybe our true position is, but at least we're not degrading and defending like crazy like we were doing last year.”

Where do Mercedes and McLaren really sit in the pecking order?

Last Saturday, there were also other problems that masked the true picture for the other typical runners in the group chasing Red Bull closest.

Mercedes was losing “five or six tenths of a second” with its engine and brake cooling problems, plus the knock-on battery issues that effected both W15s, per team boss Toto Wolff. On that car’s potential, it’s as Lewis Hamilton says: “We have a platform that we can start adding shit to – adding bricks and stuff”.

Mercedes and McLaren didn't perform as strongly as expected in the first round

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

But Mercedes never got to show what it could do even with this new, better basic car reference against Verstappen either. And with such severe car issues, no silver/black or red machine was going to hold back Perez’s latest rise up the order from a lowly grid position (for such a good car).

And then there’s McLaren. Lando Norris explained Bahrain is “a track we struggle with still, [but] the fact we're so close to Mercedes is still a good sign for us that at some tracks we'll be able to be ahead”. Team boss Andrea Stella also highlighted how the orange team has gained 1.8 seconds year-on-year, in Bahrain qualifying.

PLUS: How F1's driver market could look if Verstappen went to Mercedes

“I mean, they [Red Bull] weren't [on another planet]”, Norris replied when that exact suggestion was put to him-post race. “Carlos was not far behind. I know it's very good on race pace, the Red Bull, and on this track you need to be good on tyres, because it's so abrasive. So, I'm thinking that Ferrari did a good job.

“[Red Bull is] also very strong here just as a characteristic. But they clearly are still ahead, that's for sure.”

How good really is the RB20?

Much is made of Bahrain’s abrasive track surface. One team insider explained to Autosport last week how this factor alone means that track has therefore become very much a Red Bull happy hunting ground in the new ground-effect era (and it should’ve really won here in 2021 too). Stella, meanwhile, says “Bahrain was a very strong race for Red Bull even in 2023 [as] they seem to capitalise on the characteristics of their car”.

The surface simply flatters cars with better degradation tendencies. In Jeddah, where the F1 circus has now arrived, the surface is significantly less abrasive (Pirelli has it at 2/5 of its own ranking, with Bahrain 5/5). This should mean the rest don’t have to back off quite so much and while the same is of course true for Red Bull, it means the gradient stacked against its opposition is simply less steep.

Verstappen also revealed after the Bahrain race that the wind had “changed… the intensity of it”, which “helped us out a bit more compared to the last two days”. Had the conditions not swung to favour the RB20 – and by comparison, McLaren’s MCL38 was left feeling “shockingly bad” in some corners per Norris – the winning margin again might’ve been smaller.

Has a Red Bull 1-2 really set the tone for the rest of 2024?

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Verstappen was left feeling he “just had a better feeling with the car and I could look after my tyres quite well at the same time” compared to his handling in qualifying, where he should’ve been beaten by Ferrari had Leclerc hooked up his best from Q2. On that, Leclerc’s “we lost a little bit the rhythm with a used set of C3 [tyres] in Q3” claim is plausible, but had he bettered Sainz’s Q1-leading time, such a switch wouldn’t have been necessary.

Of course, the counter to all this is that, without any opposition (yet again), it cannot be known how hard Verstappen had to push in the session that mattered most in Bahrain this year. There is a sound argument he might indeed have been further ahead. After all, this time there was no tension with engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over lap time adherence when clear in the lead with Perez finally back behind, as there had been in 2023.

If any of Red Bull’s main rivals can have a smooth run through a weekend, they might just be able to make a fight of it with F1’s top team on a more regular basis this year

This time, once back on softs for the final stint, Verstappen signalled his intention to chase the fastest lap bonus point. He smashed it by 1.5s once he’d been given the information on what would turn out to be Leclerc’s next best, then handed almost eight seconds back over the next two laps to bed in his softs properly after his engineer’s chilled instruction.

Will there be any, and more, closer races in 2024?

The main takeaway from all this is, if any of Red Bull’s main rivals can have a smooth run through a weekend, they might just be able to make a fight of it with F1’s top team on a more regular basis this year. Because they clearly are in much better places this time around. Aston’s year-on-year fall demonstrates it.

Red Bull is better too – it’s too good a squad overall not to be in another year of stable car design rules. But the current situation appears to elevate the chances of something happening to knock it off its perch, a la Singapore 2023, or Monaco or Austin last year too, if its rivals can provide closer challenges.

Another crushing win in Jeddah would go some way to dispelling this, of course. But it’s all we’ve got right now. It really is the hope that gets you…

Will we see closer racing in 2024?

Photo by: Erik Junius