Race Recap: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia

Hi guys, it's Nathan here! I'm really excited for you guys to read the first version of Race Recap that is not written by me. Ghazlan, our new writer, will take over this content pillar for the season. Without further ado, enjoy this piece! 👍

We are back with another season of Race Recap, where we walk you through some of the biggest storylines during a race weekend. I may not be Nathan, but I'm equally passionate about Formula One (Spoiler alert: I'm a huge Mercedes fan).

Race Recap starts with the idea of giving you content that walks you through some of the biggest story lines that occur during a Grand Prix (GP) without watching it. As I cover most of the on-track action, our co-founders — Nathan and Jonathan —will cover the off-track drama on Race Pod, our new podcast.

February kick started the 2024 F1 World Championship with pre-season testing and Round One in Bahrain before the circus travelled to Saudi Arabia and Australia. Once again, Max Verstappen and Red Bull enter this season as the reigning drivers' and constructors' champions and the ones to beat.

Without further ado, let's dive into the key story lines that happened in the first three races of the season before heading to Japan.

(All image credits go to Formula One)

Dream start for Red Bull and a mixed outing for Ferrari

Red Bull started the season strong: a 1-2 finish in Bahrain and reigning drivers’ champion Max Verstappen achieving his fifth career grand slam.

Carlos Sainz looked like a man on a mission after starting fourth. Sainz made the most of George Russell’s power unit issue to inherit his third place. The Spaniard proceeded to battle Pérez for second place, but Ferrari opted to be cautious and gave Sainz a conservative double-stop strategy with the hard tyres. Ultimately, he finished the race in third place and was awarded the “Driver of the Day” with an impressive tally of 31.4%.

While the other side of the Ferrari garage is celebrating, that wasn't the case for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque suffered many lock-ups during the earlier laps and seemingly had trouble handling his SF-24. Despite these unfortunate issues, Leclerc appeared to have things under control as the race progressed and finished the race in fourth. All in all, Ferrari was looking quick and competitive in Bahrain. 

Homework for Mercedes Power Unit runners

Mercedes and its customer teams were hoping to quickly bounce back from their Bahrain struggles after pace inconsistencies across the sessions — but they failed to challenge the front-runners. 

Mercedes was forced to tune down its engine power after Hamilton encountered engine issues during the race and Russell dropped out of the podium positions. McLaren also couldn’t replicate their pace in Free Practice, with Norris and Piastri finishing the race in seventh and eighth, respectively. 

In an interview with F1.com,  Mercedes’ team principal, Toto Wolff, was not impressed and stated that they "need to look within ourselves why we lost so much power in the harder compounds.”

Alpine in trouble

Alpine appeared to be slow the entire race weekend. 

Pre-season testing times suggested that the Enstone-based team would struggle heavily with their weight and regularly occupy the bottom of the time board. Although testing time rarely shows the true performance of the cars, that wasn't the case for Alpine.

So, to no one's surprise, they qualified in the last row of the grid and ended the race in P17 and P18 only due to Valtteri Bottas' long pit stop and Logan Sargeant's steering wheel glitch.

Trouble at Red Bull?

The Milton Keynes-based team secured another 1–2 finish in Jeddah. Like in Bahrain, the duo was joined by a Ferrari. This time, Charles Leclerc was at the podium instead of Carlos Sainz. 

Red Bull managed to focus on the task at hand, albeit entering the GP with the gossip of team boss Christian Horner’s controversy, rumours of advisor Helmut Marko leaving the team, and the rumoured departure of Verstappen to Mercedes. 

Ferrari also made the correct strategy calls to ensure Leclerc finished on the podium, cementing their spot as the second-best team on the grid.

Dream debut for Oliver Bearman

Carlos Sainz was forced to back out from the Saudi Arabian GP due to appendicitis. This meant that Oliver Bearman, Ferrari's reserve driver, had to step up from F2 to F1 and get used to the car, which had only one Free Practice session. In qualifying, he narrowly missed out on Q3 with only 0.036 separating him between the tenth-placed Hamilton.

During the race, Bearman was constantly encouraged by his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, to get the youngster comfortable with the car. He had a solid race en route for a seventh-place finish in his debut, which earned him the "Driver of the Day Award" from the fans.

Piastri vs Hamilton: One for the highlight reel

Early Safety Car conditions during the race led most of the grid to pit, but Hamilton took the gamble of staying out with his Medium tyres and climbed up the positions when many cars pitted. Piastri, on fresh Hard tyres, tried to hunt down Hamilton, who was on the worn Mediums, but the seven-time world champion had other plans. 

Even with DRS, Piastri couldn’t get past the Briton in the pit straight despite the Mercedes losing a lot of time in Sector 2. As a result, it brought an exciting and thrilling battle for those watching the race and certainly a battle we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Ferrari ends Red Bull’s hope of an unbeaten season

Ladies and gentlemen, may I politely remind you that the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race last season is still open to work in 2025?

Verstappen qualified on pole and had Carlos Sainz alongside him. As soon as the lights went out, Verstappen could be seen struggling to hold his lead. As soon as Sainz passed him, Verstappen eventually had to retire on lap 5. Sainz never looked back and achieved his third career victory with Leclerc and former teammate Lando Norris joining him on the podium.

Verstappen’s retirement marked the first mechanical retirement for the Dutchman since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. It was caused by an apparent brake drum fire, which he described as “having a handbrake pulled on the car” — a similar sensation to last year. Despite having to settle for second-best, Leclerc was quick to heap praise on his race-winning teammate.

A weekend to write off for Mercedes

Mercedes were hoping for a strong showing in Australia. It was, however, anything but as Hamilton Hamilton quickly admitted that 2024 has been his “worst start” to an F1 campaign. 

The team experimented with various setups during practice. Yet, Hamilton failed to reach Q3 on Saturday and qualified in eleventh — his worst start in Melbourne since its 2010 edition, where he started in the same place. Meanwhile, his teammate qualified in seventh.

During the race, Hamilton had to retire on Lap 17 due to a power unit failure. Russell was doing fine before crashing into the barriers in the last lap. The double retirements for both cars were the first time since the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix. Safe to say, they’ll burn the midnight oil (again) to solve the issue regarding the cars’ inconsistency.

“Potentially dangerous” driving costs Alonso more points

Alonso and Russell were fighting for a sixth-place finish as the latter began to claw his way back up each lap to hunt down the Aston Martin after having a late pit stop on Lap 46. With DRS, the Briton was within striking distance of Alonso’s gearbox as the race was about to end.

However, chaos ensued on the penultimate lap, where Russell lost control of his Mercedes and crashed into the barriers before grinding to a halt in the middle of the track. The field was then neutralised with a Virtual Safety Car and the race finished under that condition, with the Mercedes driver stranded in the middle of the track.

After the race, the stewards awarded Alonso a post-race drive-through penalty that was converted into a 20-second time penalty to his race time, demoting him from sixth to eighth. The stewards deemed Alonso at fault for “potentially dangerous” driving before Russell’s crash. Telemetry data showed him lifting slightly more than 100 metres and braking at the spot where he usually doesn’t brake.

What do you think of the first three races of 2024?

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This newsletter was written by Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah and edited by Hew Hoong Liang (Nathan).

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