The Title FIGHT is Officially ON this Year in F1: Bahrain Grand Prix Recap

LARS BARON. Getty Images.

The fight lived up to the hype. We have a legitimate title fight this year where Red Bull and Mercedes are going at it against each other head to head in cars that are very competitive. The Lewis Hamilton vs. Max Verstappen title battle is officially on. We haven't had this type of excitement in F1 for several years.

Both teams ran different strategies throughout the race, trading the lead back and forth when the other team pitted. Red Bull pitted Verstappen on his final stop later than Lewis, and exited a few seconds behind but with better, newer tires. This means he had a big speed advantage on every lap, while Hamilton's car was getting slower and harder to drive as the tires got older. Verstappen had to go out and hunt down Lewis over the last 20 laps, while Lewis was trying to hold onto his lead.

This 👏 is 👏 what 👏 we 👏 want 👏 as 👏 F1 👏 fans 👏 . The last few laps were an ELECTRIC FACTORY. 

Verstappen went out and put in fast lap after fast lap and cut Hamilton's lead down, eventually getting within one (1) second of him on the last few laps. That's when Max went into attack mode and went after Lewis, pulling off the comeback on the 54th lap to take the lead. 

HOWEVER:

He pulled off the move outside of the track limits and had to give the position back. It was heartbreaking for Verstappen. Then with 3 laps to go Verstappen had to go out and attempt to pass Lewis, again. Passing a 7x World Champion is not easy once, let alone twice. It didn't matter that Verstappen was faster, he blew his opportunity. Lewis put the race car in all of the right places on the track and made it pretty much impossible to pass him again, holding on to win the first Grand Prix of the season. WHAT A RACE.

I talked about it in my season preview blog that the reason to watch F1 is not just about the racing, but all the drama surrounding it. It's the most classic F1 thing that this race was basically decided by a somewhat ambiguous rule about track limits that all of the drivers have been bitching about all weekend. The entire race, Lewis was going wide in that corner (turn 4) and had to be told by his team that he had to stop or he would face a penalty. Lewis even said on the team radio that he didn't even know about that rule change, even though it was made super obvious all weekend to the drivers.

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Then in that same corner, Max went too wide to pass Lewis. The team came on the radio to Max to tell him and he freaked out. Max immediately got on the team radio after the race was over and bitched out the team about why they told him to give the spot back instead of taking a 5-second penalty and let him go out in clean air and get 5 seconds of Lewis on track to win the race. The most Max thing ever. This is why you have to love him even if you hate him, he just gives us so much damn drama every single race. 

As much as things stayed the same (Lewis Hamilton wins another Grand Prix, Mercedes is in 1st place in the Constructors), things are completely different this year. The past couple of seasons, Lewis being out in front at the end of a race would have been game over. Turn off the lights, it's already over. But instead, we had incredible last lap fireworks where anything could've happened. 

In the battle of the second drivers, Bottas netted 3rd place for Mercedes compared to Perez getting 5th place for Red Bull. Perez looks more qualified than anyone in the past to handle the pressure of the 2nd Red Bull seat, battling back after a technical failure during the formation lap and having to start in last place. He could have potentially been on the podium without that failure. He battled back and delivered points for Red Bull that they'll desperately need if they want to beat Mercedes at the end of the year. 

This season is already living up to the hype and this was just race 1 of 23. Get ready for this title fight, it’s going to be a heavyweight battle every race this season. If this race didn't sell you on why to watch F1 every Sunday morning, nothing will. Hopefully, you're all in and ready for more. The next race is on April 18th in Italy.

Here are the full race highlights if you want to re-live this truly great race:

Other Notables from the Race:

Lars Baron. Getty Images.

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The Midfield battle is also living up to the hype. The McLaren car looks to be the clear #3 car on the grid with Lando grabbing a seemingly easy 4th place finish and Riccardo in 7th in his first race driving the new car. Ferrari looks like they are fully on the road to recovery from last year with Leclerc strong in 6th, proving again that he is one of the most talented drivers on the grid getting the absolute best out of the car every race.

Gasley for Alpha Tauri who started 5th and looked poised to capitalize this race with a very strong pre-season, but had diaster strike losing his front wing in the first couple laps of the race, relegating him to the back of the field for the rest of the race. Luckily for Alpha Tarui, rookie Yuki was able to get the first points of the season and the first of his career. He looks strong this year and isn't afraid to send it to pass former World Champions like Kimi and Alonso.

McLaren vs. Ferrari vs. Alpha vs. Aston Martin vs. Alpine is going to be electric all season. Aston Martin and Alpine were on the back foot this race but still were competitive. As much fun as this title fight will be, there's going to be so much drama in this midfield battle.

The Worst Day of My Life

One last note is that Haas is going to be BAD this season like dumpster fire bad. In the first corner of his first race, rookie Mazepin basically just said fuck it and hit his throttle too early spinning his car into the wall on the 3rd corner of his first race. On the Barstool Sportsbook, there was a prop for the first driver to retire from the race and Mazepin was +600. Shoutout to all of the stoolies who hoped on this one because it was a VERY easy bet to cash. I'm basically going to just bet that prop of Mazepin retiring all season long. He said after the race it was "one of the worst days of my life probably" you REALLY hate to see it…

It's going to be a LONG year for Haas, even Mick Schumacher couldn't keep the car under control, spinning out a couple of laps later. Shout out to Jack Aitken who filled in for one race last season driving the Williams car in Bahrain. Abolsute daggers. 

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Now we have to wait a couple of weeks until the next race and it can't come soon enough. Even between races, there's tons of drama and politics that happen. If you want to talk more about this race or keep up to date with what's going on, hit me up on Twitter, and let's talk F1.

Race 1 in the books. Now…. LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO to race 2.