Getting the first race in the books shined some more light on true performances of the cars, but also brings more questions.
Mercedes, surprise surprise they win again. But it wasn't without a fight and that's what most have been at least hoping for. I have to say I think Hamilton showed why he is a 7 time world champion today. Brilliant performance by him. I do think Mercedes has more outright pace than it appears, especially in the race. The Mercedes powered cars seem to have little trouble overtaking on the straights. I feel they are still the most fuel efficient engine's on the grid by some margin. The undercut by Hamilton on lap 14, his outlap on hard tires was something like 2.9 seconds faster than Verstappen on not badly worn mediums. That's ridiculous. Bottas 5.0 seems to be a downgrade.
Red Bull appear to be the fastest car overall. Honda has really good power. Fighting for track position and making Mercedes respond to them may be a better direction. I do like the differing strategies though. Sergio Perez was very impressive. A great recovery drive that has to give the team confidence.
McLaren's race performance is where many expected, including myself. Currently appear to be the 3rd best car, however the gap to 1st/2nd is greater than I hoped.
Ferrari had a strong race. A definite improvement in pace over last season, however the finishing positions may not be all that much better. Sainz is a definite upgrade over Vettel. He was up and down during the race and finished only 8 seconds behind Leclerc. Job well done by both drivers. The power unit still seems to be a clunker in race trim unfortunately.
AlphaTauri, give a hand to Yuki for scoring his first points in his first race. But where was the rest of their pace. I know Gasly destroyed his front wing from the love tap with Ricciardo, but what happened to him afterwards? From qualifying it looked as if they would be battling with McLaren, but their race pace wasn't really there... at least not today.
Aston Martin did have better race pace than qualifying. Points for Stroll seems like a good result, but their pace overall is not that strong. They seem to be 7th or 8th fastest car right now which is pretty embarrassing. It's also embarrassing hearing Otmar complaining how the rules hurt their low rake car, but didn't affect the high rake cars at all. News flash, but their car used to be high rake until they bought the 2019 Mercedes chassis and then somehow copied a lot of Mercedes' 2021 design elements as well. Beyond an embarrassment is Seb Vettel crashing into Ocon and then blaming him for moving when it was 100% Vettel's fault.
Alfa Romeo did really really well. If only they were a little bit fastest, they would be in the hunt for points each weekend. Instead they will be the vultures than collect points as the faster cars DNF.
Alpine, not much to say about the car performance. I doubt they ever get out of that 6-8th best team range. Alonso had flashes of brilliance, but then at other times dropped like a rock. He DNF'd with supposed issues, but who knows. Everyone will focus on Alonso, but I could see Ocon putting in some amazing performances that come out of nowhere.
Williams are still along way off from points.
Haas are paying the price with rookie drivers in a car that the team pretty much doesn't give a crap about. The car may be like the 2019 Williams, a distant ways off of the second worst car, but neither Schumacher or Mazepin are as good as Russell to make a difference. Mazepin is quickly showing how awful he is. 2 spins in Qualifying and a self inflected crash out of the race in just 3 corners. Shameful.
Lastly I must critique the FIA/Stewards. Last season the track limit rule meant warnings and penalties and it worked reasonably well, they just didn't enforce it enough. Now for Bahrain 2021 they put track limits in effect for qualifying which is great, but then say they wont look at it during the race for some strange reason. Lewis and Mercedes of course exploit this and admit to going outside the track limits for the entire first half of the race gaining who knows how much time, and then once Red Bull start doing it, the stewards step in and say it's not okay. Funny that in the end the track limits would be one of the deciding factors in the races results. I don't blame the drivers at all, it's the FIA/Stewards than need to be crystal clear about what the track limits are and enforce them strictly.
Looking forward to the next race already.
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