The unseen Verstappen problem that ensured Leclerc's Bahrain GP win

“Ferrari is back. And it is properly back.”

So said Carlos Sainz Jr, fresh from the joyful parc ferme scenes at the 2022 Formula 1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, where he finished as runner-up to team-mate Charles Leclerc. But for all his good work across the weekend, the Spaniard wasn’t the story of the first race of the new campaign – the start of the championship’s much-vaunted new era.

That centred on Leclerc’s brilliance against the reigning world champion, who put in a sterling display of his own – battling car issues throughout the contest, long before a dramatic Red Bull reliability meltdown cost Max Verstappen dearly.

Before Leclerc lined up to take the start from the 10th pole of his F1 career, he was surrounded by expectation. Grid revellers and media swarmed his car in scenes reserved only for Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen in recent years, but the 24-year-old nevertheless took time to fulfil his pre-race ritual – sitting by the barrier, facing his machine, taking stock of what was to come.

Ferrari hadn’t been sure how its 2022 start performance would match up with Red Bull’s in the redesigned machines, but Leclerc and Verstappen moved off the line in unison. Using pole’s distance advantage, Leclerc moved swiftly to his right to chop off his rival’s line to the inside and held the lead through the opening corners. Verstappen braked later for Turn 1 and got fully alongside, but Leclerc’s critical move to seal the inside of the tight right-hander was enough.

Behind, Sainz was briefly threatened by the fast-starting Hamilton – who attacked to the outside, which became the inside of Turn 2 as the pack’s staggered positions unwound. That meant Hamilton edged out Sergio Perez and took fourth, with resurgent Haas star Kevin Magnussen taking advantage of the second Red Bull sliding to move up as well.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18, George Russell, Mercedes W13, the rest. of the field at the start

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But through all that jockeying, Leclerc had cemented his lead – weaving once down the short straight to the Turn 4 right and then pulling clear of Verstappen’s DRS threat with a 1.2-second advantage at the end of the first tour of 57.

Ferrari had a plan and it had worked perfectly. The top three on the grid had come into the race with one new set of softs (from four left in total) to deploy – the previous rule of running Q2-used rubber gone for 2022. Ferrari, said Leclerc, opted to “have a bit of a different strategy between our two cars, to hopefully put Max in a bit of a difficult situation”. This meant Leclerc had started on his new set of the red-walled rubber, with Sainz on one of his older sets, as Verstappen was too.

This appeared to be the critical difference for Leclerc romping to a significant early lead. This increased by 0.19s each time over the six tours that followed the first lap, as the two leaders slid down the 1m38s bracket much slower than the rest. But there was something more problematic at play for Verstappen.

As early as lap five, his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was warning him to “increase lift off” into the braking zones. Two tours later the call came for Verstappen to “increase your lift and coast a little bit more”. The Red Bull’s brakes were simply overheating and losing major performance. Verstappen was by then “barely braking”, and suddenly shipping 0.24s a lap on the six tours that preceded his first pitstop.

Leclerc had learned to “brake very early into Turn 1 to get the DRS for Turn 4”. So, he was able to get back ahead again – the second time by going to Verstappen’s inside

Red Bull went aggressive in a bid to put pressure on the lead Ferrari, which really worked. Using the undercut’s advantage, plus Leclerc sliding out of the final corners then Ferrari having “a bit of a problem on the front right at the pitstop”, per Leclerc, Verstappen went from 3.7s adrift at the end of the lap before his stop to running right with the leader when Leclerc emerged from his covering service. Verstappen had taken his new softs, with Leclerc doing the reverse and suddenly there was a fantastic fight unfolding.

But, although it didn’t appear to from the outside, Verstappen’s brake problem impacted it all. First Lambiase told his charge he’d “have one go at it before we have issues with the brakes again” – a call that came as Verstappen ran on the pitstraight to record a 0.8s deficit at the start of the 17th tour.

Into Turn 1 he dived from way back, armed with DRS to pull off an audacious move and getting ahead despite his braking limitation. But Leclerc wasn’t to be resisted. He immediately fought back onto the short subsequent straight and swooped around Verstappen’s outside to retake the lead with the move of the race, so fine was the margin against a famously ruthless opponent.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

This was merely the first chapter. The next time by Verstappen pulled off a near identical late move. But Leclerc had learned to “brake very early into Turn 1 to get the DRS for Turn 4”. So, he was able to get back ahead again – the second time by going to Verstappen’s inside. Leclerc was however “struggling quite a lot with my [battery deployment] energy and had to manage that too”.

But as the battle entered its third thrilling chapter, Lambiase warned “eyes on dash for the brakes, Max – we need lift off at this stage”. Shortly afterwards, Verstappen’s third Turn 1 pass went wrong as he locked his right-front heavily and went deep, Leclerc nipping by on the inside and shooting clear of Verstappen’s DRS threat once again. Frustrated behind, Verstappen was warned again to “increase lift off”.

As a result, the second stint then played out in much the same way as the first. Verstappen shipped 0.38s a lap to Leclerc over the next six tours – on lap 21 complaining “it's really impossible to race like this with these brakes”. On the next tour, Lambiase informed Verstappen that his brake temperatures were finally under control again, but by this point he was 2.9s behind and now struggling with “a shit balance”. The reigning world champion was grappling with turn-in entry understeer and poor traction on corner exit – the best of his new tyre life gone.

Red Bull therefore attacked strategically once again. It brought Verstappen in for a second time on lap 30, when he’d slid to 4.2s adrift. But Leclerc’s second stop being better meant he emerged well clear. Now on the mediums, Verstappen had been warned “you have to bring these tyres in gently this stint" and that the gap had been “too big for the undercut” to bother overstressing the yellow-walled rubber. Not that he agreed.

Reacting to Leclerc’s continued lead, which stood at 2.3s at the end of the Monegasque’s second out-lap, Verstappen simply raged. “OK, this is now two times that I take it easy on the out-lap and I could've easily been in front,” he fumed. “I'm never, ever doing it again.”

It’s intriguing that Verstappen’s second out-lap was actually 0.17s faster than his first on the new softs, during which he’d also been told not to “hit these tyres hard”. The problem facing the drivers on the abrasive Bahrain surface this year was not keeping the rears alive, but rather making sure not to overly stress the fronts – such is the new challenge of getting the ground-effect cars to turn best and consistently through slower corners. And in chasing and attacking Leclerc as hard as Verstappen did, Red Bull was wary of the Dutchman being too hard on his rubber, as well as losing time with the brake issue.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Not long after Verstappen’s tirade, Lambiase stated he was “free to push”. But the gap still grew out once again, and, again, the brake problem held Verstappen back. As he later reflected, they were “overheating a lot if I wanted to attack, so after the fighting I had with Charles, I had to let him go”.

But just when it seemed as if Leclerc would cruise to his third F1 career win, the race was rather upended. In scenes eerily like the Abu Dhabi saga that ended the 2021 season and controversially resulted in Verstappen’s maiden crown, there was a safety car intervention that briefly threatened to leave Leclerc out on much older tyres compared to his rival – as was infamously the case with Hamilton and Mercedes 98 days previously.

The circumstances were slightly different. For a start, this time Verstappen had made a third green-flag pitstop to move back to used softs at the end of lap 43 – by then trailing Leclerc by 4.9s. The leader questioned if he should come in “for safety” – later explaining he “just wanted to make sure that they questioned all the scenarios before we took a decision”.

Unlike in Abu Dhabi, Leclerc was half a lap from the pits and could so come in for a third time, go back to used softs to cover Verstappen and rejoin way ahead

Ferrari opted to leave Leclerc as he was on the mediums, which he said at that point “felt quite nice” and was confident could “go to the end” even without covering Verstappen. Ferrari’s choice made, Leclerc felt “if they were confident to do so, it gave me the confidence to also just get on with my work and bring the car home”.

But that choice was taken away from the Scuderia when, on the leader’s 46th lap, Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri suddenly shut down coming out of Turn 3 and he pulled over just off the track. A suspected MGU-K failure then resulted in a fierce fire breaking out, which meant the virtual safety car that had been quickly activated had to be replaced by the actual safety car’s attentions.

But unlike in Abu Dhabi, Leclerc was half a lap from the pits and could so come in for a third time, go back to used softs to cover Verstappen and rejoin way ahead – his rival obliged to trundle to the safety car delta speed.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The race neutralisation lasted five laps, but the focus throughout concerned more developing reliability drama for Verstappen. On his final out-lap, he’d reported suddenly heavy steering. Verstappen waggled his steering wheel on each subsequent straight, convinced debris or a stuck part was causing the issue that left him turning “like a robot”.

A bent track rod was actually to blame, the damage occurring when “the car got dropped [off its jacks] at the final pitstop,” per Christian Horner. That “made the car inconsistent between left and right”, again according to the Red Bull team boss, but Verstappen’s lap times were still competitive – he set a personal best in the 1m35s on the one full lap he got back on the softs before Gasly retired.

Ahead of the lap 51 restart, Verstappen attempted what has become a regular trick of drawing alongside a leader, trying to up the pressure. This was probably unwise with a hobbled car, but the bigger problem was he did it as he and Leclerc approached the penultimate corner, the last real turn that feeds right on the main straight. So, with Verstappen pinched on a tighter than ideal line, Leclerc calmly hit the gas through the right-hander and shot clear.

Verstappen was therefore actually becoming Sainz’s prey. He’d been running nearly 20s adrift of Leclerc before the safety car bunched the field up and, with Verstappen’s car damaged and being assailed by Sainz, Leclerc simply disappeared up the road. His 1m34.570s on the first lap back to full speed was the race’s fastest, which immediately brought him a restored 1.7s lead. That grew to 5.6s at the finish.

That was a point Verstappen never saw. With three laps remaining, he urgently enquired about a possible battery problem, which Red Bull initially could not explain – despite Verstappen colourfully insisting his RB18 was “shitting itself”. His team were soon aware of what was really going on – later explained as a fuel pump problem.

“We don't know exactly what it is yet,” Horner said in the race’s immediate aftermath. “Whether it's a lift pump, whether it's collector or something along those lines.”

The third car drama Verstappen was saddled with meant Sainz was easily able to seize second with a DRS run down the back straight on lap 54. Then on the run down the penultimate straight mere moments later, Verstappen suddenly slowed and his car cut out completely as he ran through Turn 14. He crawled back, drive-less, to the Red Bull garage.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, heads into the garage after retiring

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“At this level, after already having so much information with engines and stuff, it shouldn’t happen,” said Verstappen.

The bad news was still coming for Red Bull. With Sainz clear in second, Perez now ran third. After his poor opening lap, he’d battled by Magnussen through the fast right, downhill swoop of Turn 6 on the third tour, after the Dane had locked up and shipped time at Turn 1, and then set off after Hamilton.

The Briton had “thought for a second that I was going to have a little bit of a battle with Carlos” during the early stages as he ran fourth, but it was “only for five laps and then after that they were gone”.

As the W13’s current race pace deficit to Ferrari and Red Bull was revealed, Perez promptly cruised back up to Hamilton’s rear and dispatched him with a DRS-assisted pass on the straight to Turn 4 on lap 10. From there, Perez had taken the medium tyres at his first stop to gain a tyre off-set against Sainz’s new softs, and he used the harder tyres to close in on his rival. But the gap stabilised through their respective reversed third stints and Sainz quickly covered off Perez’s third stop, which came on the same lap as Verstappen’s pre-safety car service.

"Max, on used tyres, was keeping Charles’ pace. Red Bull are still the favourites. What we can try to do is our best. Jeddah in a week’s time can be a completely different picture" Mattia Binotto

Hamilton was nearly half a minute adrift of Perez when the race was neutralised. He’d had a different route to the same green-flag three-stopper – taking used hards at his first pit visit and from there going to the mediums. But Mercedes’ tried and tested trick of fitting the hards and pushing on just didn’t work as it had for much of the ultra-high-downforce F1 era just gone, with Hamilton also having to respectively fight his way through former team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Gasly in the pack following his initial two stops.

Perez and Hamilton were both back on the softs under the safety car, with the seven-time world champion chasing hard when racing resumed. But just when it looked like Perez was safe, on the penultimate lap he reported a power loss, having been feeling it coming for “maybe five or six laps or so when Lewis was right behind me”. He continued ahead to Turn 1 on the final tour, where he was most vulnerable to attack. But having critically made the apex ahead, his engine suddenly died – locking the rears and sending him spinning and out.

“It looks suspiciously like the failures are relating to each other," said Horner of his cars’ retirements. "The symptoms looked very similar. We know the fuel was in there.”

Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari F1-75, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

And so, a surprise leading trio took the chequered flag first. Ferrari’s first 1-2 since the 2019 Singapore race followed two painfully fallow years for the scarlet squad. This was down to the engine power deficit it faced from the start of 2020 and the result of its controversial settlement with the FIA over its previous engine arrangement. Now it seems back to being F1’s best power punch. Red Bull has greater end-of-straight speed, but the Ferrari accelerates faster.

“It's a good starting point no doubt,” said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto. “We were not expecting the 1-2 or were even not hoping for it. Charles did a fantastic race, Carlos as well.”

But its more surprising to consider Hamilton’s 183rd F1 podium a shock, which reflects just how far adrift the Silver Arrows squad is right now – primarily because it is still porpoising badly when running a low set-up, critical to get the ground-effect working best.

“[It] was a lot better than it had been,” a clearly delighted Hamilton said in the post-race press conference. “Through testing it was killer. It's a long race to be bouncing up and down. But I'll take it with the performance that we managed to squeeze out.”

And so, F1 heads for its second Jeddah race with Ferrari fulfilled, mighty Mercedes just about managing and Red Bull reeling.

The race day temperatures were the hottest of the weekend, up 4°C over the FP2 race-data-gathering period. This exacerbated Verstappen’s brake problems and meant he could not replicate his FP2 long-run form, which was over a second per lap clear of the best Ferrari could manage on a similar stint-length (albeit with Sainz, who couldn’t match his team-mate’s overall pace as he struggled for rear grip).

Binotto explained his team’s cars “did not have problems with the brake system” but is clearly wary of Ferrari’s capitulated rival posing an ominous threat.

“Max, on used tyres, was keeping Charles’ pace,” he said when asked if Ferrari could possibly go on to claim the 2022 titles. “Red Bull are still the favourites. What we can try to do is our best. Jeddah in a week’s time can be a completely different picture and I think we need to wait at least four or five races before answering that question.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 1st position, Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari, 2nd position, with their trophies

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images