2023 Formula 1 Bahrain GP Race Reaction

The 2023 Formula 1 season kicked off last weekend in Bahrain with unprecedented levels of excitement for the sport and the start of a fresh season. The rise of the popular “documentary” series Drive to Survive has seen the sports fan base grow immensely in the last five years. With three races being held in the United States this year in Miami, Las Vegas, and Texas, the growth of the sport in the States will continue at its current meteoric pace continuing the flooding of the sport with new eyes.

The Bahrain GP started quite contentiously with the Red Bulls and Ferraris jockeying for position, causing Carlos Sainz to be forced to the extreme inside line at the first turn. At the end of the initial jostling, we watched Max Verstappen’s RB19 get the best release from the first turn, and from then on never saw him again. That is unfortunately the nature of the Bahrain track, pole position is king here.

Red Bulls' performance gap is not necessarily surprising, they showed at testing that they had the superior car to everyone on the grid. The gap size, however, is surprising. Red Bull has the grid discouraged by its form right now. I read an article with an interview from George Russel of Mercedes essentially saying he was ready to turn the team’s focus toward next season. That is a harsh and dark reality considering we are only one race in.

The true shocker of the weekend came from the green cars of Aston Martin. Aston Martin, as we mentioned in our season preview article has been turning heads since the first day of testing. At the race in Bahrain they may have broken some necks. The team pulled off an incredible podium finish thanks to their new signee Fernando Alonso. Alonso performed quite possibly the coolest and smoothest overtake on Lewis too (Watch Here!).

As an EXTREMELY amateur simulation racer, I have had the opportunity to drive on a simulation version of the Bahrain track and in my limited experience, I cannot even comprehend attempting a move like that at that spot on the track. In my experience just getting the car to slow down enough to handle that tight turn is enough for me to worry about in the virtual racing world.

Aston Martin came out of the weekend as the consensus second-fastest car on the grid, a truly astounding achievement considering the team’s rather abysmal first two seasons.

The team has managed to not only put the top dogs of the sport on serious notice, but they have also managed to completely jump above the midfield in one swift maneuver, something every single midfield team has been dreaming of since being labeled a “midfield” team.

The most embarrassed team must be Mercedes. Aston Martin is a full-blown Mercedes customer team, meaning, the Aston Martin team buys its engine and a vast majority of its components for building the car from Mercedes. Thus, it can be concluded that at this point a CUSTOMER team is utilizing Mercedes parts better than Mercedes itself. Woof, that’s tough.

I won’t even touch on Ferrari here really but, wow an engine failure sure isn’t the way the Scuderia wanted to start the season of reliability with.

McLaren had one of the worst weekends I have ever seen in my short time following the sport. Lando Norris was forced to pit 6 times due to some sort of malfunction in his car. Pitting 6 times is quite abnormal and guarantees a last-place finish. The young McLaren rookie Piastri also did not have a fun day DNFing after only 14 laps.

The best of the rest at the moment appears to me to be Alpine, they did not have a great race day with Gasly running into some trouble early and Ocon having a nightmare of a day racking up penalties left and right. Gasly managed to recover extremely well and I think on a day Ocon doesn’t rack up 35 seconds' worth of penalties we may say the Alpines pushing the likes of Mercedes down further.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable start to the season. Having a new face in Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin to cheer for this year will be fun if they can maintain their current pace.

We have a weekend break now with the next Formula 1 race being on March 19th in Saudi Arabia at the famed Jeddah Circuit. We here at the Herald will cover the race here as it approaches, stay tuned.

Written by: Cole B Hirschhorn