The laps that underpinned Verstappen’s crushing Bahrain GP victory

“We're expecting probably a half-second deficit [per lap],” George Russell mused, moments after putting his Mercedes third on the Bahrain Grand Prix grid. Asked to estimate the advantage Red Bull would have in the race, Russell reckoned that it would be slightly larger than the 0.3s difference seen on the timing boards between he and Verstappen on Friday night.

Max Verstappen looked slightly surprised by Russell’s assertion. “Half a second?!” he exclaimed with feigned indignance. “I think that's way too big. But if you say that now, then if it's better tomorrow, then you can say, ‘Oh, it's unbelievable, the car is unbelievable’.”

“Under-promise, over-deliver!” was Russell’s riposte, quietly hoping that Verstappen was right and Mercedes would find a stronger vein of performance in Saturday’s 57-lap race. Instead, he’d inadvertently predicted just how utterly dominant Verstappen would prove to be in 2024’s season opener. The Red Bull driver often transcended that predicted half-a-second advantage in his rout of the rest of the field.

Hopes that Verstappen would face sterner tests with greater regularity had probably already been dashed after testing, as Red Bull’s RB20 looked pretty unchallenged in the longer runs. Ferrari and Carlos Sainz had scrubbed up pretty well on the test’s second day in long-run trim, but there was nonetheless an expectation that the Red Bulls would turn up to the grand prix proper with a bit more in hand. The longer runs in FP2 also hinted towards an RB20 advantage – but the magnitude remained conspicuously veiled.

Before Red Bull could really show its hand, Verstappen had ensure that he came up for air with the lead. He and fellow front-row starter Charles Leclerc enjoyed pretty much the same getaway, although the Ferrari driver was granted the opportunity to tuck in behind and drink up a welcome slipstream before shooting his shot.

The Monegasque attempted to place his SF-24 around the outside into Turn 1, but couldn’t find the purchase through the corner to force his way into the inside line for Turn 2. Verstappen had preserved the lead, and now he needed to quickly extend it thanks to off-season tinkering to the rulebook.

Verstappen ensured he staved off Leclerc's challenge at the start, and was never truly threatened subsequently

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

It’s been a frequent feature of Verstappen’s leads that he has been able to build a one-second buffer before DRS can be activated at the start of the third lap, but the use of the overtaking aid has now been pushed forward to the start of lap two. Unsurprisingly, he was able to cope with that; Leclerc was 0.987s behind after the opening tour and his weekend-long deficit to the Red Bull in the opening trio of corners nullified any faint glimpse of a DRS fightback.

Leclerc was no longer in the picture at this juncture as his race took something of a downhill tumble: after being forcefully disposed of on lap three by Russell, who swept around the outside of the Ferrari driver into Turn 4 with a beautifully deft touch on the throttle, Leclerc started to experience myriad lock-ups as he suffered with brake temperature splits. The more he locked up, the worse it got and the more positions he lost, culminating in an almost 100-degree C difference between his left and right front brakes.

Russell couldn’t really pose an early challenge to Verstappen either. Progress stalled after the lofty Briton had moved past Leclerc, giving the reigning champion ample opportunity to start break-building out in front. It felt like a peak Ronnie O’Sullivan at play, seamlessly placing snooker balls atop the baize on his way to an effortless 147 score; Verstappen posted consistent 1m37.0s during his opening stint on soft tyres and, on the rare occasion he went slightly above that, he’d simply compensate on the next lap.

In the first half of his second stint stint, Verstappen could be anywhere between 0.8s to one second a lap faster than his team-mate, suggesting a mastery of the RB20 despite limited time with his new steed

In the meantime, Russell had started to encounter issues that left him unable to at least keep tabs with Verstappen’s pace. Temperature spikes within the powertrain had started to cause alarms, and the Mercedes was losing enough pace to Verstappen that Leclerc, Sergio Perez, and Sainz were now firmly in his wheeltracks. Russell’s problems were still in their infancy, but a later continuation of those temperature issues – believed to be down to Mercedes being marginally too aggressive with its cooling package – forced Russell into a mid-race period spent lifting and coasting.

As Russell and Leclerc started to nurse their issues, their on-track countenance that of a slight limp, Perez and Sainz began to knock on the door. Leclerc’s front-locking at Turn 10 put him off the road and gave Perez plenty of ammunition to make his play for third into the next corner. It was pretty straightforward and almost appeared as if the seas had parted for the Mexican; Russell was next in his sights and Leclerc was now in Sainz’s clutches.

Russell and Leclerc pitted at the end of lap 11, ditching their soft tyres for the hard, but the latter was forced into defending against Sainz into the first corner of that lap. The Spaniard was aggressive and shoved his Ferrari down the inside of his team-mate's identical model to claim another position.

Perez brought his Red Bull in a lap later in reaction to the Russell and Leclerc stops, coming out between them on the sole set of hard tyres that he had to play with. It wasn’t long before Russell came under pressure, as his initial laps on the hard were somewhat abject compared to Perez’s; skirting the high 1m36s and low 1m37s could not stand up to Perez posting a couple of 1m35s laps.

Russell moved ahead of Leclerc with his brake-locking Ferrari, but neither could hold off Perez

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Resisting the urge to put a forceful move on Russell into the first corner of lap 14, Perez waited until the second DRS zone to loom in the Silver Arrows’ mirrors ahead of a Turn 4 assault. A notably early turn-in put Russell rather wide for the exit, while Perez had taken a V-shape approach to the corner; he’d have to slow a bit more to swing his midnight blue machine to the inside for the exit, but had the traction to blitz past his rival. It looked easy, and Red Bull had crucially sealed first and second in its grasp – at least, after Sainz and Fernando Alonso had pitted.

Verstappen was just shy of 30s clear of Perez at the end of lap 17, eventually making his own switch to the hard tyre. Now level pegging on pitlane visits, the gap between them was about 6s, but this was only going to swell as Verstappen set some vastly impressive laps on the C1 compound and put Perez in the shade. In the first half of that stint, the three-time champion could be anywhere between 0.8s to one second a lap faster than his team-mate, suggesting a mastery of the RB20 despite limited time with his new steed. It’s more of a chasm than a gap, and that’s against a driver in the same car.

The thing about champions, when they’re operating on such a stratospheric plane of performance, is that it rarely gets appreciated because they’re more often than not driving the best car. But there’s a clear delineation to make between winning in the fastest car, and leaving naught but utter devastation behind en route to victory. Verstappen was able to easily sit consistently in the low-to-mid 1m35s range during the bulk of his hard-tyre stint, while Perez dipped below the 1m36s mark twice at the start and then never again. That’s the difference between good and great.

It only took a few laps for Verstappen – five, to be precise – to inflate his lead to 10s. Russell’s post-qualifying prediction of half a second looked positively quaint against the nearly full second per lap that Perez was shipping in those early tours on the hards. With little chance of returning the favour, the Guadalajara-born driver was instead focused on managing his stint to ensure that Sainz was not about to catch him and make a play for second.

Having managed his tyres better compared to Leclerc, Sainz had been left out for three extra laps, which put him back behind the team-mate he’d forcefully put a move on before the stops. He had to do it again, this time opening the 17th lap with a move seemingly emerging from the aether. In modern F1 parlance, it was a ‘full send’ moment that just about strayed away from dive-bomb territory.

Close-run? It looked like it, and certainly would have conferred a few squeaky-bum moments on the Ferrari pitwall. But Sainz reckoned that he had everything under control.

“It never felt close inside the car,” Sainz contended. “Whenever I do an overtake on my team-mate, I will always try and leave as much margin as possible, and I try and do it whenever I feel like I'm fully under control and I'm not putting any car at risk. And that's exactly what I did. It felt like a very good move. I was always keeping an eye on Charles and not making him also lose time or anything like that.”

Sainz reckoned that his moves were also testament to the improvements that Ferrari had made over the off-season. Last year’s car was, when balanced upon a razor-sharp edge, a brilliant contender in qualifying, but the race-day performance was less prosperous owing to its heavy-handedness on tyres.

Once on the hard tyres, Verstappen had Perez covered easily

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

With greater confidence, Sainz started to put Perez under the microscope, although there was a forcefield-like 2s buffer between them that the Ferrari driver couldn’t quite breach with enough regularity. On occasion, last year’s Singapore winner could dip into that void, but Perez could respond and restore his advantage. Not that he could really do much about Verstappen.

Red Bull didn’t really need another trick up its sleeve, and could have run the field ragged with just a conventional soft-hard-hard strategy. But, perhaps fearing more competition on race day, the team saved an extra set of softs from FP3 and pressed them into service for the final stint of the evening. They’d have to do over 20 laps on them, but the team was confident enough on its degradation that it could make the distance. Perez collected his red-walled tyres at the end of lap 36, Verstappen following suit a lap later while the rest finished off with another set of hards.

This was always in Red Bull’s gameplan, even before the weekend. Hints of a close field in FP2 on the longer runs did not sway the team, as it reckoned that testing had shown that the C3 rubber was more than capable of maintaining a superior level of pace.

The level of Red Bull’s dominance over the other teams even caught Verstappen by surprise, and his own suggestion that Russell’s half-second prediction was too large appeared to be genuine

“From my side, it was quite clear after testing and also practice that we needed to do what we did,” Verstappen explained. “With the soft being a good tyre and the hard being… well, the hard. So never big question marks, to be honest.”

"It was straightforward,” Perez concurred. “I think the hard is just not performing as well as with the other teams. And we seem to be better looking after the soft. So it worked really well to be able to save a new soft.”

It was in those opening laps with the soft that Verstappen plundered the fastest lap, a 1m32.608s, (still nearly 1.2s shy of Pedro de la Rosa’s 2005 record) but he immediately backed off on the following tour to ensure he could bring the tyres in more gently. Perez was arguably a bit more gung-ho by comparison and, although he was faster in the opening portion of the stint compared to Verstappen post-fastest lap, his times dropped off as his stablemate started to ratchet his up.

“I knew that it was just about managing,” Perez said, “because [Sainz] obviously pushed us to stop early. It was going to be a very long stint, so we managed to progressively build a gap, keep that gap between us consistent, and I think it worked well. But we had a few other issues [with engine braking] towards the end of the race that meant that our degradation was getting quite a lot worse.”

Verstappen’s lead dropped to ‘only’ 15s in that intervening period but, when Perez started to lose momentum, it was in the ascendancy once again. At the flag, 22.5s separated them: the biggest winning margin ever seen at the Bahrain circuit.

Perez pushed harder early following the switch back to softs, but Verstappen could hold a stronger pace for longer

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The level of Red Bull’s dominance over the other teams even caught Verstappen by surprise, and his own suggestion that Russell’s half-second prediction was too large appeared to be genuine. He reckoned that the wind, which was less intense than Friday’s breezy qualifying and almost acted like a half-turn of added front wing, had a part to play. He seemed completely at home, and the hopes for a more concerted challenge from the other teams on the grid diminished to the merest of embers after the first few corners.

“Of course, I don't know how [the other teams] approached their long runs, you know, with fuel loads and whatever,” Verstappen added. “But from our side, it was definitely not expected to be a half a second ahead, for sure not. It was probably a bit better than I thought today.”

Going back to his victory in Japan last year, Verstappen has managed to chain eight wins together and looks good value to at least match the 10-race streak of victories from 2023’s Miami to Monza stretch. With that superiority over Perez, challenges will likely have to emerge from elsewhere on the grid, so the onus is very much upon the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes, et al. to continue their progression.

Although Perez was well behind Verstappen in crossing the chequered flag, he could afford to be; Bahrain’s rough surface is much less of a burden on Red Bull than it is on the other teams. Should Jeddah’s smoother asphalt take some of the edges off the other cars’ degradation levels, then Perez will have to step it up lest another challenger fill that 22s void.

Sainz’s performance was also worthy of commendation. He had a series of great drives last year, albeit mainly from a defensive position in the races after the summer break, but he was greatly enthused by the fact that he could actually start fighting other drivers on track now that Ferrari has made progress with the tyre concerns that previously plagued it.

“I remember last year, the last race where I was attacking was Austria,” Sainz reflected. “And we're talking about 13, 14 races ago. And then the rest of the races last year, you just had to manage. You just had to look in the mirrors. You just had to control your pace. There were very little opportunities to go and overtake people.

“I love going racing, and I love going overtaking, being aggressive, attacking. To come to the most rear-limited track of the season, the highest degradation, and do [an] overtaking, attacking race for me is a relief.”

Sainz, who passed Leclerc twice, enjoyed being on the front foot after spending so much of 2023 managing his pace to hold positions gained in qualifying

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Remember Russell and Leclerc, both beleaguered in the first half of the race? While Leclerc’s brake splits were somewhat debilitating, these could be slightly alleviated throughout the grand prix and he appeared much more energised on the harder tyre. Russell, however, had to continue lifting and coasting with the engine turned down, which team principal Toto Wolff cost him well over half a second per lap.

The two converged on the 46th lap, and the shoe was on the other foot: this time, Russell ran off at Turn 10 and had to rejoin along the dusty run-off, giving Leclerc the impetus to slip past at Turn 11 and claim fourth – ultimately being 7.1s ahead by the flag.

Verstappen’s massive margin at the end was the main takeaway, however. While this might be exacerbated by the peculiarities of the Bahrain circuit, it will offer little comfort to the rest of the field as they hold off clearing any additional space in their trophy cabinet.

Most teams (save for perhaps Alpine) have made massive strides in their pursuit of honours – the problem is, Red Bull has seemingly matched their progress. So, welcome to the new season, folks! It feels quite similar to the old one…

The 2024 season to date appears set to follow the template of 2023 with Red Bull the team to beat

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images