2022 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix highlights

While other teams on the grid grappled with the car configuration at the 2022 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix, both Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Alpha Tauri were bursting out of the gates in Practise and Quali’s with a promising start to the season. Unfortunately for the Red Bulls’ Scuderia Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly, engine issues resulted in three DNFs at the eleventh hour on Sunday’s race day.

Unfortunately for reigning world champion Max Verstappen, after an impressive battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, which saw the two trading the lead back and forth, he had to retire in the final laps due to a mechanical fault. Teammate Sergio Pérez also suffered the same fate, putting up a stellar defence for third from Mercedes Lewis Hamilton, only to lose power on the final lap with a podium finish in sight.

Max Verstappen

We were feeling quite competitive throughout the weekend so the result today was very unfortunate for us. The problems started initially with the brakes, they were overheating so I had to lift off and as a result, I lost pace and had to let Charles go. After that, there were still a few issues with car balance and after my final pit stop my steering wheel was locked. That made it very difficult to drive so defending from Carlos at the re-start wasn’t easy. The final issue looked like a fuel system problem, which is why I had to retire and it was extremely painful for both our cars to DNF. We don’t know exactly what went wrong yet but we’ll definitely analyse the data and make sure we learn from it. At the end of the day, motorsport is unpredictable and these things can happen, this is race one, we have plenty more ahead of us.

Sergio Pérez

It was going to be a great start to the season but unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get the result we were hoping for. It is very disappointing to not be able to execute the result we wanted; we had the podium in our pocket until the last lap. A couple of laps before the end I could feel I was losing power, we knew there was an issue and we knew what had happened with Max. I had a similar issue with his car, at the moment we think it was a fuel system problem and basically the engine just stopped. It is tough to digest but we are going to look for the positives and come back stronger next week in Jeddah. I am sure we will get to the bottom of the problem, we are a great team and I really believe in them. Today is very disappointing and an unfortunate start to our season but a year is a long time in Formula 1 and we’re only one race in.

Christian Horner – Team Principal

Obviously, we are hugely disappointed to lose the chance of podium finishes today, but congratulations to Ferrari on their one, two finish and a return to the front. We will need to conduct a full investigation into what happened, but it looks suspiciously like the failures are related to each other and it may be an issue with the fuel system. The positive side for us is that we clearly have a competitive car, I don’t think we quite had the pace today, but there was some great racing between Max and Charles. It’s an incredibly long season with 22 races remaining, so we need to get on top of whatever this issue was today and come back stronger next weekend.

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