Formula 1 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix results

From 19th place on the grid Mazepin tussled with teammate Mick Schumacher going through Sakhir's first corner combination, but then lost control over his car on the Turn 2 exit kerbs.
The Russian rookie tried to catch his car but veered off to the left and hit the wall, ending his F1 debut after less than a mile.
Mazepin took full responsibility for his mistake, saying he was very sorry for ...

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The Spaniard was in the mix for a top 10 finish at the F1 season opener as he battled with McLaren, Aston Martin and Ferrari rivals over the early stages of the Sakhir race.
But just when it looked like he was on course to deliver points in his first race for Alpine, despite some minor battery problems, he began struggling with overheating brakes and he was forced in to the pits to ...

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The Dutchman had headed into the Bahrain race as favourite for the victory, but ended up losing out to rival Lewis Hamilton after the world champion's Mercedes team went aggressive with its strategy.
But Red Bull's ability to respond to what Mercedes was doing was hampered by it not having the same number of tyre sets available.
While both Mercedes drivers had two sets of new hard tyres ...

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Red Bull and Honda protege Tsunoda was promoted to AlphaTauri at the expense of Daniil Kvyat after a sole season in Formula 2 and immediately impressed by scoring points on his Bahrain F1 debut.
Tsunoda only started 13th on the grid after struggling to put a good lap together in Q2, but then produced a combative display which saw him duel with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso before ...

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Those limits were at the heart of the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. The race winner downplayed any advantage he may have gained by consistently running wide at Turn 4 ? suggesting that he actually helped his tyres when he stopped doing it ? but his rival remained convinced that Hamilton hadn't followed what was agreed and understood before the race.
The fact that the ...

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Perez triggered an aborted start when his car shut off during the formation lap and he coasted to a halt.
With no power, the Mexican couldn?t communicate with his team, which sent repeated "radio check? messages that went unanswered.
Despite his relative unfamiliarity with the car and the Honda power unit systems Perez was able to restore power after taking the steering wheel off and ...

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An aggressive strategy by the German car manufacturer, allied to some great tyre management and defensive driving from Lewis Hamilton, helped the world champion fend off Max Verstappen at Sakhir on Sunday.
But despite the joy of the win, which came off the back of a tricky pre-season test, Mercedes is in no doubt that any prior advantage it has had in F1 has been wiped away.
Mercedes ...

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Horner admitted to some frustration after the Bahrain race at the way he felt there was a lack of consistency and clear guidance over the policing of track limits at Turn 4.
While drivers had been told that anyone abusing the limits in qualifying would have their lap times deleted, for the race there was no such provision ? so drivers were free to run wide there.
However, drivers had ...

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The Mercedes driver's third and final stint was 11 laps longer than Verstappen's equivalent, as the Black Arrows opted to take an aggressive strategy to get ahead of the polesitter.
The tactic worked, but Verstappen was relentlessly homing in on Hamilton throughout his final 17-lap run to the flag ? passing the world champion on the outside of the controversial Turn 4 right-hander with three ...

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Track limits played a pivotal role in the outcome of F1's entertaining 2021 season opener.
With four laps to go, Red Bull's Max Verstappen overtook erstwhile leader Lewis Hamilton at Turn 4 but had to hand the position back to the world champion after leaving the track.
In qualifying, track limit transgressions at Turn 4 led to deleted laptimes, but for Sunday's race drivers were initially ...

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With four laps to go in F1 2021's season opener, Verstappen went off track in Turn 4 in an attempt to snatch the victory away from leader Lewis Hamilton, forcing him to hand the position back to Mercedes' world champion.
Verstappen questioned Red Bull's call to give the position back, claiming he would have preferred to risk a potential five-second penalty and try to gap Hamilton on the final ...

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Verstappen had closed in on Hamilton during his 17-lap third and final stint ? during which he enjoyed an 11-lap tyre-life advantage over his rival ? in what was a thrilling conclusion to F1's 2021 season opener after leading the early stages from pole and falling behind thanks to Mercedes' aggressive strategy calls.
The Red Bull driver attacked Hamilton around the outside of the ...

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Mercedes ran a different strategy with Hamilton that gained him the lead after he undercut Red Bull?s Max Verstappen in the first round of stops. But Red Bull didn?t react, running a medium-medium-hard tyre strategy to Hamilton?s medium-hard-hard that looked to swing back in its favour in the second half of the race. Verstappen had to pass Hamilton on track in his final stint, the race ...

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The world champion took victory in the F1 season opener as he eked out his tyres for a long final stint at Sakhir and held off pre-race favourite Verstappen for the win.
Although Verstappen briefly managed to take the lead a few laps from home, he had the give the place back after running wide at Turn 4 ? and then the Dutchman was unable to get close enough again for another shot at grabbing ...

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After reeling in leader Hamilton on fresher tyres during an absorbing duel, Verstappen used the DRS with four laps to go to attack the Briton into Turn 4.
Verstappen managed to pass Hamilton around the outside but went off the track at the exit, an area which the FIA stewards started policing halfway through the race.
Verstappen quickly let Hamilton past again on the following straight but ...

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Mercedes and Red Bull deployed differing tyre strategies, with Verstappen's offset rubber life advantage in the final stint meaning he was chasing Hamilton after leading the early stages from pole.
With four laps to go, Verstappen attacked Hamilton around the outside of Turn 4, which was been heavily policed for track limits by the FIA, and as the Dutchman went too wide off the kerb he was ...

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Speaking after his one day driving the FW43B in pre-season testing earlier this month, Williams driver George Russell said he expected the team's 2021 performances to "yo-yo" depending on how much wind was blowing at each venue.
Russell and teammate Nicholas Latifi outlined this again ahead of this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix ? taking place at a venue where gusts of wind regularly catch out ...

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In a year that had the risk of being a stale repeat of 2020, with teams carrying over their chassis, the performance swings shown at the Bahrain season opener have been quite dramatic.
All teams have been slowed by the changes to the floor, brake ducts and diffuser regulations, but some have suffered much more than others.
A look at the qualifying time comparisons from last year's Bahrain ...

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Verstappen gave Red Bull the first pole position of the 2021 season with a storming run to his fourth career pole at the Sakhir track on Saturday, finishing ahead of Mercedes duo Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
After climbing from his W12 following Mercedes' first season opener qualifying defeat in the turbo hybrid era, Hamilton said he "absolutely gave it everything I had, but unfortunately it ...

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The four-time F1 world champion, preparing for his Aston Martin debut after switching from Ferrari over the winter, was knocked out in the first session of qualifying in 18th place ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix after aborting his final flying lap due to two separate yellow flag incidents.
Vettel, who was initially cleared in an FIA stewards? hearing for not respecting a single waved yellow ...

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A strong pre-season test for the Woking-based outfit, allied to some rapid laps in Friday practice at Sakhir, pointed to McLaren emerging as the main threat to Red Bull and Mercedes.
But Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris ended up qualifying sixth and seventh on the grid, having been edged out by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly.
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl ...

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The Russian rookie, preparing for his maiden race outing in F1, was seen jumping the warm-up lap queue, overtaking three cars running slowly ahead of their final flying laps.
F1 drivers have a gentleman's agreement not to overtake each other during warm-up laps.
Mazepin, however, passed three rivals before spinning in front of them, ruining the laps of Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Aston ...

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There will be also less tolerance for moving in the braking area at any stage of a grand prix, or late moves in response to the car behind.
In recent years the FIA has followed a ?let them race? philosophy, and has usually made allowances for contact on the first lap, with instances being judged as racing incidents.
However, in the light of an ongoing discussion last season, there is now ...

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As a globally known personality, the world champion's words carry weight, and he's been granted the opportunity to use his fame for good. To his credit he has consistently done exactly that ? and this week in Bahrain his focus has turned to human rights.
The sport travels to several countries where the subject is an issue for campaigners. It's inevitable that as a major international event a ...

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After two years away from the sport, Alonso qualified ninth at Sakhir, taking full advantage of Pirelli's softer tyres in Q2 to book a place in the Q3 shootout.
Despite outqualifying teammate Esteban Ocon, who starts Sunday's curtain raiser in 16th after failing to survive Q1, Alonso said there is still "more to come" from him as the season progresses.
"I have to get better myself first of ...

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The often unpredictable rear end of the RB16 proved a handful for both Max Verstappen and Alex Albon at times, but the evidence is clear that the RB16B is much more firmly planted.
Red Bull spent a large portion of last season focused on a rectification programme, as it discovered quite quickly that the RB16?s performance was flawed, owing to a correlation issue between its ...

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Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start the 2021 F1 season opener from pole position, ahead of the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. Charles Leclerc will line up fourth on the grid for Ferrari, ahead of an equally impressive Pierre Gasly in the AlphaTauri.
When is the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix? 
The Bahrain Grand Prix will be held on March 28 at the Bahrain ...

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The four-time F1 champion is making his Aston Martin debut this weekend following his switch from Ferrari over the winter, but endured a frustrating qualifying in Bahrain when he was knocked out in Q1 after having to back off on his final flying lap due to traffic and yellow flags.
Vettel had to slow down at Turn 1 after Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin spun ahead of him, with the Russian having just ...

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While teammate Max Verstappen claimed pole at the Bahrain International Circuit, Perez will start Sunday's season opener from 11th on the grid.
Running on the slower medium tyres, the Mexican missed the cut by 0.035s to Aston Martin's Lance Stroll in a tightly-contested Q2 battle to reach the top 10.
Perez admitted he was disappointed by the manner his Red Bull career had begun, but is ...

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While the team is well aware that its chassis is not performing as it would like against its main F1 rival, it is also facing headaches in getting on top of its energy recovery systems for the season opener.
Team boss Toto Wolff reckoned that Mercedes was losing out to Honda in terms of its derating ? which is when the engine boost that comes from its energy recovery systems runs out at the ...

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The 20-year-old Japanese was a stunning second fastest in Q1 on soft tyres, behind only eventual poleman Max Verstappen, but struggled in Q2 as AlphaTauri attempted to get Tsunoda and teammate Pierre Gasly through to the top 10 shootout on the medium C3 tyres.
But while Gasly clocked the eighth fastest time in Q3, F2 graduate Tsunoda struggled to 13th and reported that "it's not acceptable for ...

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The Italian squad enjoyed a more competitive start to the season than last year with both Sainz and Charles Leclerc advancing to Q3 in Bahrain, but only after the former suffered a "stressful" engine shut-off in Q1.
After narrowly claiming a place in Q2, Sainz slowed down on his out-lap with an 'engine stop' message on his dashboard before his car briefly switched off. Sainz managed to crawl ...

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The British sportscar manufacturer endured a tough first qualifying of the season in Bahrain on Saturday, with Sebastian Vettel getting knocked out in Q1 to line up 18th, and Lance Stroll qualifying 10th.
On a track configuration where at the end of last year the team was fighting for a podium finish, it has been left in no doubt that the floor changes for 2021 have significantly hurt the low- ...

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While the teams were required to carry over the vast majority of their 2020 car designs for use this season, changes to F1's technical rules mandated that a triangle-shaped area of the rear floor had to be removed.
This was part of an attempt to cut downforce levels by up to 10% of what the cars were producing in 2020, which also included a reduction in the size of rear diffuser strakes, to ...

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Verstappen, who went on to claim the first pole position of the 2021 season ahead of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, went hard over the kerbs on the exit of the Turn 2 left-hander on his first run of qualifying.
The Dutchman radioed his Red Bull team to ask for his rear floor to be checked, with TV images capturing several carbon strakes bouncing behind the car as he accelerated out of Turn 3 ...

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Verstappen will start ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas after the one-hour qualifying session, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.

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Bahrain GP: Verstappen storms to pole ahead of Hamilton


Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying results: Verstappen on pole from ...

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The world champion ended up snatching second spot on the grid for the F1 season opener, but was powerless to prevent Max Verstappen earning pole position by 0.388 seconds.
And while Mercedes has made good progress since its troubled pre-season testing weekend, Hamilton reckoned there was nothing else he could have done to overhaul Red Bull.
"Congratulations to Max. He did such a great job ...

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During an extremely tight first qualifying phase, Vettel needed a second flyer to claim a spot in Q2.
Vettel's final attempt was thwarted by two yellow flags however, which meant the four-time world champion couldn't improve his personal best and languished down in 18th place.
First Vettel had to slow down in Turn 1 for spinning Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin, who had just jumped the queue and ...

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Verstappen, who was fastest in all three practice sessions at the Sakhir track, and Hamilton duelled for the top spot through Q3, with the latter twice taking provisional pole before being usurped.
Hamilton's first Q3 run of 1m29.549s ended up 0.023s behind Verstappen's 1m29.526s.
On the second runs, Hamilton improved to a 1m29.383s, but crucially did not improve his personal best time in ...

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Finishing cars are always weighed and measured and have fuel samples checked after races, before the results are made official.
However from the Bahrain GP onwards the FIA will randomly select one car for much more detailed examination, and potentially stripping of components.
The FIA has informed the team of the process, via a technical directive and a more general explanation from the ...

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