Monegasque Charles Leclerc won the first race of the 2022 Formula 1 season, this Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix, giving Ferrari his first victory since 2019 on a day when the other Scuderia driver, Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr, was also second.
The British Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) completed the podium, with third place, thanks to the abandonment of the two Red Bulls, that of the Dutch Max Verstappen (reigning world champion) and that of the Mexican Sergio Pérez due to breakdowns in the last three laps.
Ferrari, which was confident in the change of technical regulations that comes into force this year to forget two years without victories (since the Singapore GP in 2019), starts in the best way and officially launches its candidacy for the title.
The legendary Italian brand has not been champion in drivers since Kimi Raikkonen won it in 2007 and has not been crowned in the constructors category since 2008.
On a personal level, Leclerc, who had started from the 'pole position', also gets a rematch from what he experienced in Bahrain in 2019, when he was going straight to his first victory in F1, before being betrayed by his engine.
The British George Russell, the new signing of Mercedes, finished fourth.
After a season away from the premier category of motorsport, Danish Kevin Magnussen, called last minute last week to replace Russian Nikita Mazepin, fired after the invasion of Ukraine, gave Haas a meritorious fifth place on Sunday.
Finnish Valtteri Bottas (former Mercedes, now in Alfa Romeo) was sixth, ahead of French Esteban Ocon (Alpine, 7th), Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri, 8th), Spaniard Fernando Alonso (Alpine, 9th) and Chinese newcomer Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo, 10th), who in the first Grand Prix of a driver from his country managed to enter the scoring zone.
- Support for Ukraine -
Frenchman Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) was forced to abandon by fire in his car.
In Aston Martin, the German Nico Hülkenberg, who replaced his compatriot Sebastian Vettel (sick with covid-19) this weekend, finished seventeenth.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), recently recovered from covid, was fourteenth.
With the new regulation, the single-seaters are different and the hierarchies can be modified, which opens up the forecasts. One of the consequences of the new regulation is to make it easier to overtake during the race.
The F1 World Cup continues next week with the second Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, in Jeddah, three and a half months after the first, in which Hamilton won ahead of Verstappen in early December 2021.
Off the track, F1 reacted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, encouraging donations to Unicef on social media, as well as on the starting grid of the Grand Prix. Gasly and Hülkenberg wore Ukrainian flags on their helmets.
The International Automobile Federation (FIA) announced a donation to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Entities (IFCR) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as the creation of an “intervention group” to “coordinate their humanitarian response”.
pel/dr