The opening FIA Formula 1 World Championship race of the 2024 season is now in the books, and it was Max Verstappen who completed a Grand Slam, winning the race from pole position, leading all fifty-seven laps and securing fastest lap to boot!
The podium was completed by the second Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 of Sergio Perez, with the podium being completed by Scuderia Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.
In part two, those who missed out on points in the race look back at their Saturday evenings under the floodlights at the Bahrain International Circuit.
#24 – Guanyu Zhou – Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
“Today, we maximised everything we could, and I am happy we were able to fight so closely for the points. We had a clean race with a good start where I was able to make up some positions, but it was quite challenging to keep the Aston Martins behind without compromising our tyres.
“Luckily, I managed to keep Kevin [Magnussen] and the rest of the field behind me. We made progress over the weekend, and the team worked hard to find the optimal setup. Unfortunately, in a race with no attrition, we couldn’t get points without anything happening to the cars ahead of us.
“There is still a lot to improve for us, and we’ll continue working on our performance to be able to compete even more strongly for points in Jeddah and in the upcoming races.”
#20 – Kevin Magnussen – MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
“I’m kind of pleased – not over the moon, as we didn’t score points – but it seems like we have a car which is a bit better on the tyres this year, not necessarily quicker than last year but at least better on tyres, and I think we’ve shown that today.
“Nonetheless, it’s only one track, one bit of tarmac, and one set of conditions so we still have to show that elsewhere. It’s been a good couple of weeks of work, the team has done a really good job, and we’re in a good place – we just need to find more.”
#3 – Daniel Ricciardo – Visa CashApp RB
“We were not quite good enough for points today. I struggled a lot at the beginning of the race with the used soft tyres because there was a pretty poor grip off the line. In the middle stint with the hard tyres, we got a little bit more pace, but I anyway felt that I was struggling. In the end, the new soft compound was a lot better.
“We finally extracted some pace and were catching the pack. At that point, I got a little stuck behind other cars and I lost the grip on the tyres. The call for the drivers’ swap was quite expected and came with no surprise. Before the race, we obviously talked with the team about strategy plans, and it was highly likely I was going to finish the race with a new set of soft tyres after starting the race with a used set.
“It is what it is, and let’s turn the page now. I’ve got an idea of what we can do to be better, so I’ve some confidence in going racing next week in Jeddah.”
#22 – Yuki Tsunoda – Visa CashApp RB
“I think I was doing quite well within the points until about halfway through the race when I felt it was slipping away from us. We weren’t fighting for points at that time, so we’ll have to review everything during our post-race analysis and learn from it for the future.
“It’s race one, so there’s still lots of time to understand. In general, there’s still a lot we can take away from this weekend, the mechanics did a great job with all our pitstops, and if there is anything we could do better strategy-wise, we’ll review and improve for Saudi.”
#23 – Alexander Albon – Williams Racing
“The car itself was okay but we’re far behind. We had issues the whole race with things that if we had done more running in testing, we would’ve been able to avoid.
“We were overheating the entire race and were down on power, so hopefully we can take a look at the data and arrive in Jeddah in better shape. Our pace relative to the others is quite similar so that midfield battle is close and will be tough.”
#27 – Nico Hülkenberg – MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
“It’s very frustrating and disappointing, and it was a very similar scenario to last year into Turn 4 at the start. On a positive note, our race pace and tire degradation looked pretty reasonable compared to the other midfield runners, and I think we’re fighting Williams, Sauber and RB, so I guess we take that as a positive.
“There will be more findings after today, things to improve and optimize on. Jeddah is obviously a very different circuit with completely different characteristics, so we’ll see what we get there but it feels like we have a much better foundation to work with compared to last year.”
#31 – Esteban Ocon – BWT Alpine F1 Team
“Today was a continuation of what we saw in Qualifying yesterday and, overall, it has not been the weekend we wanted. Most importantly we had a clean race and collected valuable data that we can take into the race in Jeddah next week. It will be interesting to see how we fare on different layouts and in different conditions.
“We’ll dig in and put our heads together during the short break between races and see where we can improve. We have to stay focused, stay positive and keep going in the right direction. Collectively as a team we have to keep our heads up and foot down going to Saudi Arabia.”
#10 – Pierre Gasly – BWT Alpine F1 Team
“It was not our day but probably what we expected in the end. I had a great launch off the line, passed a couple of cars but then I was caught by some Turn 1 chaos with cars spinning in front, which put me back. That was not ideal but after that, we did all we could do with what we had in our hands today.
“We have many areas to keep improving and I know the hard work will continue behind the scenes. We have to keep making steps forward as we are not where we want to be right now. Next week it’s a different track, a new opportunity and a fresh challenge for us to keep showing progress.”
#77 – Valtteri Bottas – Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
“Unfortunately, today just hasn’t been my day. I had a good start, but then I got caught up in the Turn One incident between Nico [Hülkenberg] and Lance [Stroll], which resulted in front wing damage that made me lose some ground and performance. On top of that, we had an issue with the wheelnut during my second pit stop, which made us lose some more time.
“Luck wasn’t on our side today, but hopefully that’s all the bad luck for this season. As a positive to take home with us, our pace was definitely better than that of our main competitors – as seen with Zhou, who nearly finished into the points. This shows we have a better race car than last season, and gives us confidence looking into Jeddah next week.”
#2 – Logan Sargeant – Williams Racing
It was frustrating as we had the steering wheel electronics issue yesterday in Qualifying and then it returned today, so the most important thing is that we need to understand the root cause of this and get it fixed going forward.
“We had a really good first lap and a great opening stint and made some good gains and it felt like it was coming to me before we had the issue. We were struggling a little with PU temp which meant I couldn’t stay close to the cars ahead, so it was just a bit of a disappointing evening. There’s nothing we can’t fix, but we need to understand everything moving forward.”
