Notes/Analysis for Bahrain Grand Prix:On a Sunday in which Charles Leclerc gambled with strategy to pull off a stunning win on the last lap in the Formula 2 race, so to did Vettel & Ferrari's strategy gamble turn out to be the right strategy. The only major issue with the win, in an otherwise thrilling race is: what if?
Hamilton was penalised (rightly) for deliberately holding up Ricciardo in the pitlane entry (whilst under safety car but still racing) and got a 5 second time penalty. Without the penalty, him and Vettel would have been a lot closer (although I did get the impression that Vettel was managing based on his language / body language post race, as well as his times when in close proximity to hamilton).
Additionally another what if question posed is what would have happened if Verstappen didnt have a brake failure early (ish) in the race. He was able to overtake his teammate and Raikkonen in the early stages (again) and in fact was stuck behind Hamilton during the 1st stints. He made the right decision to pit the lap after Vettel but had brake failure soon afterwards.
A further what if question is regarding Bottas: is he officially a number 2 driver now or what. He was leading everyone in the 1st stint and Hamilton after both pit stops, yet during both stints he was asked to move out of the way of Lewis (in comparison to Raikkonen who almost crashed into vettel as vettel was trying to move away from the mercs).
As was the case in China, this race proved to be an excellent race in terms of non-DRS overtakes and even made the GP2 sprint race from the morning look like a snoozefest.
Stroll and Sainz crashed into the 1st corner as Sainz emerged from the pitlane and is currently being investigated. Depending on the camerashot, you could say it was either or no-ones faults so it should be interesting, but otherwise another wasted weekend for Stroll in a season which he is already suffering from (be it lack of skill/experience or luck).
Perrenial fastguys Grosjean and Hulkenberg finally scored points today and kudos to force india for getting both cars in the points despite horrible starting spots.
Wehrlein was arguably the driver of the day. the injury he sustained were 3 cracked vertebrae (for those who dont know about health stuff, that can potentially cause paralysis depending on severity) and he seriously outdrove the car.
Palmer surprise surprise finished last and if not for the retirements of Alonso, Sainz, Magnussen, Verstappen and Maybe Ericsson and Stroll would have been slowest on race pace (they should seriously replace him with Ollie Rowland at some point as Rowland has more talent than him).
Technically, there were a couple if interesting tidbits. Ferrari had an interesting flaw exposed on its floor where an outlet (which is allowed) was flapping (not allowed) due to essentially not being bound to the bodywork (floor slots .holes cannot be connected else they are illegal), but the performance benefits were minimal (if anything I was surprised Red Bulls wasnt pointed out as that thing is massive).
More interesting however was an unintentional leak by Mercedes that their qualifying mode gives them an extra 30-40 horsepower over ferrari (half a second) in qualifying.
Even as an (semi-unbiased) Ferrari fan, it still pains me to see how far Mclaren have fallen. It makes Williams post-BMW decline look like Redbull turning from lower Midfield to Champions.
Ferrari now have more points than all the other teams minus Mercedes put together. It looks more and more likely that Ferrari and Mercedes will be fighting for the Title with Red Bull 3rd and a very tight midfield battle between Force India, Williams, Torro Rosso and Haas.
The 2017 Russian Grand Prix is 2 weeks away and hopefully battle resumed. This year looks to be the most exciting season for a long while and is already more interesting than the last 3 years put together. Because of the Hamilton Vettel clash, interest in the UK (it may have been Europe as well per TV figures) are already 30% higher than they have been in the last 7 years.
All I know is tune in next time for Dragon Ball Z, I mean Formula 1