Bahrain Grand Prix – Race: Lewis Hamilton wins after a thrilling finale

There you go, the 2021 season is well underway and we now know our first winner, and it is Lewis Hamilton, which is still quite a surprise compared to the weekend’s events up until now.

But to get there, it was first necessary to go through the Sakhir circuit 56 times, in the humid Middle Eastern night, with a strong wind. Yes, 56 and not 57 because there were two formation laps because, surprise, even before the grid formation since Sergio Perez was forced to stop at the edge of the track because his engine suddenly cut out! The Mexican still managed to restart to go and start from the pit lane.

At the exit of the third turn, we were plunged back four months into the past as a Haas was thrown into the safety walls. Following Romain Grosjean’s terrible accident last year, this time it was Nikita Mazepin who was thrown into the left wall due to a piloting error when accelerating out of the chicane.

The restart of the race was animated as Max Verstappen chose to accelerate at the very last moment. The big losers were the two AlphaTauri drivers who both damaged their front wing in the fight, which even forced Pierre Gasly to pass through the pits at the end of the third lap.

The carousel of pit stops began on the 12th lap. The big winner was Fernando Alonso, who managed to get ahead of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin and even Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren. The Australian still managed to regain his position shortly after, but that caused him to lose touch with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.

On the contrary, Max Verstappen lost the lead at that moment because Lewis Hamilton perfectly executed his undercut on the Red Bull driver. This forced the Red Bull team to change strategy as the Dutch driver came back out on medium tires, which guaranteed a second pit stop, whereas Lewis Hamilton kept his options open by going for the hard tires.

From the 29th lap, just after the halfway point, Lewis Hamilton decided to switch to a new set of hard tires because Max Verstappen was closing in rapidly on his mediums. Verstappen therefore chose to extend his second stint as much as possible, pushing it until the 40th lap. He came out of the pit lane eight seconds behind the seven-time world champion.

With 10 laps to go, Sebastian Vettel hit the back of Esteban Ocon‘s Alpine, who had just overtaken him in the start/finish straight, but both men were able to get back on track, despite a damaged front wing for the German.

In the final laps, everyone had their eyes riveted on the gaps between the two front-runners, with number 33 gradually catching up to number 44. The Briton missed an opportunity by messing up the braking before the straight line, allowing Max Verstappen to enter the DRS zone.

On the 53rd lap, the Dutchman overtook Lewis Hamilton at turn 4 but went wide, beyond the famous track limits. Following his team’s instructions, he then let his rival pass to avoid any risk of potential penalty. However, he was never able to pose a threat again and it was thus Lewis Hamilton who eventually won!

Far behind, **Valtteri Bottas** took advantage of being so far behind to put on new tires on the final lap in order to secure the point for the fastest lap in the race.

Behind, we can highlight Lando Norris’s excellent fourth place ahead of Sergio Perez, who managed a great comeback after his issues during the formation lap. Charles Leclerc managed to not lose too many positions after a discreet but efficient race. Yuki Tsunoda was able to score his first points with a ninth place finish in his first F1 race.

The complete ranking of the Bahrain Grand Prix