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Sakhir, Bahrain – The drama surrounding Crimson Bull had no impact on its three-time world champion as Max Verstappen beat the sector by 22 seconds within the season-opening Formulation 1 race on Saturday.
Verstappen began the Bahrain Grand Prix on pole place and was by no means significantly challenged en path to a spectacular one-two victory for Crimson Bull with teammate Sergio Pérez. Embattled staff principal Christian Horner was joined by his former pop star spouse, Geri Halliwell, earlier than the race and through podium celebrations.
“Right this moment went higher than anticipated,” Verstappen mentioned. “It was a whole lot of enjoyable.”
Carlos Sainz Jr. completed third for Ferrari after a tricky battle along with his teammate Charles Leclerc.
At the beginning of the longest F1 season ever at 24 races, Verstappen has already proven indicators of repeating his almost-perfect file from 2023, when the Dutch driver received 19 of twenty-two races.
Bahrain was the eighth consecutive win for Verstappen since final September. He set an F1 file of 10 consecutive wins final season.
With the F1 paddock's focus solely on Horner, Verstappen mentioned on Saturday his boss was “most likely a little bit distracted.”
“Clearly, it's not nice, there's some undesirable consideration, however the consideration may be very a lot on the vehicles now,” Horner mentioned. “I'm targeted on what's occurring on the observe and as we speak's end result, I believe, reveals the place the complete staff's focus is and the place we’re shifting ahead.”
Horner arrived on race day hand-in-hand with Halliwell, also called Ginger Spice of the pop group Spice Women, they usually celebrated collectively when Verstappen obtained his trophy. The race got here to a halt after FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem mentioned in feedback to the Monetary Occasions that the turmoil surrounding Horner was “damaging the game”.
On Wednesday, the staff's father or mother firm dismissed a grievance by Horner over alleged misconduct with a staff worker. A day later throughout apply in Bahrain, a file purportedly containing proof towards Horner was emailed to roughly 200 folks within the F1 paddock, together with Liberty Media, F1, the FIA, the opposite 9 staff principals and quite a few media shops.
The authenticity of the recordsdata has not been verified by the Related Press; The file got here from a traditional e-mail account.
In one other signal that Crimson Bull is considerably quicker than some other staff, Pérez climbed from fifth to second on the grid earlier than going through little problem.
Sainz's third place was his first podium end since the USA GP in October because the problem of George Russell's Mercedes light.
After qualifying in second place, Leclerc talked about taking a “step ahead” in comparison with Ferrari's disappointing 2023. However the Italian staff couldn’t get near Crimson Bull on race day.
Leclerc's problem to Verstappen ended when the Dutch driver took the within line on the first nook. After that, Leclerc was shortly overtaken by Russell, Pérez and his Ferrari teammate Sainz.
Sainz, specifically, battled carefully along with his teammate – and did so once more after being briefly overtaken by Leclerc at a pit cease. This was Sainz's first race because it was introduced that he would lose his Ferrari seat for 2025 to Lewis Hamilton.
Leclerc's day went from unhealthy to worse as he complained to Ferrari that the automotive was shifting “dangerously” sharply to the precise when braking, leaving him unable to defend his place. Nonetheless, he was later overtaken by Russell and completed fourth.
Russell completed fifth after an sudden race within the second Mercedes, Lando Norris sixth for McLaren and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton seventh. McLaren's Oscar Piastri was eighth forward of the 2 Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.