2019 Bahrain GP Review – By Bob Constanduros
Two Grands Prix down: two different winners, Ferrari denied in Bahrain, unexpected and unprecedented problems arise. After Lewis Hamilton’s floor damage in Melbourne, there was Valtteri Bottas’s plastic bag in Bahrain. Charles Leclerc suffered a fundamental cylinder problem, Renault performed synchronised retirement a few laps from home, probably denying Max Verstappen a podium due to the safety car. It was a surprising Grand Prix, some called it thrilling.
I spent the week between Melbourne and Bahrain in Perth, Western Australia, with my son Max in south Freemantle and the weekend at Margaret River, three hours further south. Perth, north of Freemantle is the most remote capital in the world, so they say. It is also home to Daniel Ricciardo and his family, of course, but I wasn’t there to invade his or their privacy.
While I was there I saw quite enough of Dan on the Netflix documentary from last year. I was quite impressed with the programme, a bit disappointed in some ways by the absence of Ferrari and Mercedes but the programme’s not made for me, it’s for the casual viewer and from what I’ve heard it is having the right effect in getting lapsed viewers connected again.
And I still had other motoring moments in WA, none less so when I heard a rorty engine at a winery on the outskirts of Margaret River. It’s a great area with lots of wineries, some remote coast supplying interesting wave patterns for intrepid surfers.
The rorty engine turned out to be the road car of an aspiring Formula Ford racer whose family owned the winery. Josh Matthews and his father both race Formula Fords looked after by media expert Rob van Leeuwen’s brother John who I visited a few days later at his ‘shed’.
All Aussies have sheds, of course, and they vary in size. This one, south of Freemantle and Perth, housed eight Formula Fords and an F2 Elfin. It was, in fact, a bloody great big barn! Among the Formula Fords was a Royale still proudly bearing the name of former formula ace Rick Morris, now in his seventies and still racing Formula Fords worldwide. And there was Josh’s Formula Ford and his father’s. Small world.
I’d already been to a massive classic car meet the previous Sunday at Ascot racecourse in Perth; over 1000 cars and as at Melbourne the previous weekend, I was impressed to see that Alpine were showing off their new road car but there was also one of the original A110s present, still a favourite road car of all.
My other son, Ben, was in Corsica last weekend for the Tour de Corse, World Rally championship round four, and there was a historic class with all sorts of stars, including Alpine A110s, of course. There he witnessed heartbreak for Elfyn Evans who was leading the rally until the final stage when a puncture dropped him to third. Sound familiar?
In Bahrain, we saw the same thing happen to Charles Leclerc. Anyone who has been watching the Monegasque over the years knows that he’s a star, but then we see this sometimes and it never quite happens in Formula One. The question was, could he carry over the promise we saw last year in Sauber through the maelstrom of politics that is Ferrari? Indeed, when I saw him outqualify Sebastian Vettel on Saturday, my immediate, cynical thought was Italian newspaper headlines the next day: ‘Civil war at Ferrari’. That’s what a young driver has to survive at Ferrari.
A few days later, after Mick Schumacher had tested second fastest in a Ferrari on the first day of testing at Bahrain, journalists were already suggesting that there would be no room for Sebastian Vettel at the Italian team: Schumacher would be joining Leclerc there soon. I’m afraid that my trade has become more and more fickle and social media sure doesn’t help. People write absolutely anything nowadays, present company excepted, of course.
The Bahrain test taking place at the moment is a big opportunity for teams to work out what went wrong and right in the first two Grands Prix. There were some fundamental problems as I mentioned earlier in this piece, like plastic bags, a cylinder in Leclerc’s engine, different problems for the Renault pair, loss of pace for Haas. All those will come under examination at home and in the test, and nowhere did we see that more effectively than at Ferrari who had held close investigations as to what had gone wrong in Melbourne, and sorted it out for Bahrain – mainly!
We’re still seeing some interesting splits in performance: Hulkenberg versus Riccciardo, for instance, or Verstappen and Gasly. Even Norris and Sainz, Albon and Kvyat. You might say Russell and Kubica as well.
Everyone is always interested to see what goes on at Williams. It’s a team with a big following and its recent fall from form has been distressing. Of course they missed the first two and a half days of testing, so they are playing catch-up and this week’s test will be an opportunity regain that pace.
I was still interested, however, to look at the fastest laps from last weekend. Charles Leclerc claimed that final point of course, no doubt helped by the safety car which meant no one could improve in the final laps when the cars are at their lightest. Both Williams drivers set their fastest laps in the 1m 37s, the low 1m 37s for Russell on lap 14 and Kubica a lap earlier in the high 1m 37s. Lance Stroll was next slowest in the very low 1m 37s, having set his fastest lap 17 laps later than Russell. Williams aren’t that far off and getting closer.
Lando Norris was a stand-out, too, once again in the top 10 in qualifying and then going on to finish sixth which is amazing. The McLaren, according to Fernando Alonso who tested it on the first day post-Grand Prix, is streets better than last year’s car but Carlos Sainz has had a pretty rotten start to the championship and the team will be looking hard at Renault’s engine performance.
And so to China. It was pretty sociable at the Chinese visa place in the City yesterday with F1 folk getting their visas. We were even able to follow testing while we waited. Must have been weird seeing David Coulthard queueing up with the rest of us but it will be good to see him there. It will be 1000th round of the World Championship, a real milestone in the history of the sport. It will be Grand Prix number 656 for me, just under two thirds of the total. It’s enough to make you feel old! I’d better go to Goodwood this weekend and come over all nostalgic.
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