2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result Review + Great and Grape

Formula 1 returned  for 2021 and the race in Bahrain didn’t disappoint with Lewis Hamilton just beating Max Verstappen, and our 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result Review attempts to cover as much of that as possible.

This bite sized review takes a look through the laps that mattered, the quickest way to relive the best bits without watching anything.

Then there are our ratings of the race itself, the drivers, and finish off with a bunch of graphs that are just interesting enough.

Talking of bunches, we nominate our best and worst into the great and grape. Great being good, and grape being bad for reasons we won’t bore you with.

Bits and pieces happened without anything too exciting breaking out, but our review of it all is below.

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result – THE LAPS THAT MATTERED

Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. Normally it is five or ten, so you know it was a good race if there’s more than ten. 

We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football.

Lap 0 – Sergio Perez breaks down on the parade lap, but he gets going again but must start from the pitlane. The rest of the grid has to do another parade lap.

Lap 1 – Max beats Lewis off the line, with the only major movement being Lando Norris getting ahead of Ricciardo for sixth and Leclerc up to third ahead of Bottas. The cars make it through two turns without incident by turn three sees a Haas flying off into the barrier. Without being too surprised it was F1’s Jerk in Waiting Nikita Mazepin who is the crashee. 

Safety Car deployed.

Vettel one of the big lower field movers from 18th to 14th.

ORDER – VER HAM LEC BOT GAS NOR RIC ALO STR SAI

Lap 4 – Safety Car buggers off and we’re racing again. Max not adhering to social distancing as he bunches the field massively meaning every car seems to be under pressure from everyone. Lando Norris grabs another place by stealing for fifth and is going for Bottas’ fourth straight away. Gasly has been hit and drops down the field as he is missing bodywork – possibly from Ricciardo contact. Replays show Gasly ran into the rear of Ricciardo, so his own fault.

Virtual Safety Car comes out ensuring we have yet to see a full racing lap in 2021.

Lap 5 – Virtual Safety Car Ends. Drivers behave themselves.

ORDER VER HAM LEC BOT NOR RIC ALO STR SAI GIO

Lap 6 – Bottas uses DRS to make Leclerc’s Ferrari look like a shopping trolley and takes third. Leclerc fights back for a few corners but eventually heads backwards toward the McLarens.

Lap 9 – Norris takes Leclerc for fourth. Stroll takes Alonso for seventh. Perez is up to 13th after starting from the pitlane.

Lap 13 – Pitstops begin. Leclerc, Norris, Alonso and Stroll in first in.

Lap 14 – Hamilton and Ricciardo pit. Ricciardo loses out to Alonso but not Stroll. Hamilton 1.4 secs faster in second sector, but Max stays out.

Lap 18 – Verstappen pits and Max comes out so far behind Hamilton he is barely in front of a recovering Perez. Bottas takes Perez for third just to rub it into Verstappen who is spitting chips on his radio.

ORDER HAM VER BOT PER NOR LEC VET RIC STR ALO

Lap 21 – Sainz, Alonso and Vettel share 8th, 9th and 10th in a series of moves. Vettel runs wide next lap and falls to 12th.

Lap 29 – Hamilton pits again. Comes out third behind Bottas.

Lap 31- Bottas pits – Mercedes cock up the pitstop. Bottas rejoins just in front of Ricciardo for fifth. A 10.9 second pitstop. Mercedes bringing back the 80’s which is always welcome, He ends up fifth behind Norris and Leclerc.

Lap 34 – Alonso return GP ends in retirement. It was a good first Grand Prix in a few years. Outqualified his team mate Ocon who was equally anonymous in the race.

ORDER VER HAM BOT PER SAI NOR LEC RIC STR RUS 

Lap 36 – Max Verstappen says on radio that “pace is good, so keep me out”. Red Bull oblige and it is tactical game on at the front.

Lap 39 – Tsunoda takes Raikkonen for 10th – the Alpha Tauri driver is on track for points in his first race. Perez pits and that should be the last of the major stops.

Lap 40 – Verstappen pits (just a lazy 1.9 second to change four tyres – ask your mechanic why you need half a day) and comes out second behind Hamilton by 8.6 seconds. Which is about the length of the last straight at Bahrain.

ORDER HAM VER BOT NOR LEC RIC PER STR SAI TSU

Lap 45 – To wake up the viewer or highlight their mediocrity this race Ocon and Vettel clash at the first corner. Vettel’s fault, and an ordinary move. No improvement from last season’s dross then.

Lap 48 – Gap from Verstappen to Hamilton down to under three seconds.

Lap 51 – Verstappen crosses the line for lap 51 just 1.5 seconds behind. Hamilton runs wide at turn 10 and this allows Max to close right in and within DRS.

Lap 52 – Just half a second in it. DRS Available to the Red Bull driver and Hamilton vulnerable. 

Lap 53 – Verstappen overtakes Hamilton on the outside of turn four. Sensational. But then Verstappen lets him back past as he ran wide to get in front. HAmilton’s tyres are finished.

Lap 54 – 56 – Verstappen tries his hardest but Hamilton somehow manages to hold off the Red Bull. Showing there’s more than one dimension to the multiple world champion. – 

FINAL ORDER – HAM VER BOT NOR PER LEC RIC SAI STR TSU

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result – RACE RATING

We rate the 2020 Italian F1 Grand Prix so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.

SEASON IMPORTANCE – 10 . 10

All the talk, rumours and many tonnes of sandbags have now stopped and we can finally see which car is the fastest. While the answer to that is not yet definitive, it’s at least more clear. So yeah, pretty important Grand Prix.

ON TRACK ACTION – 6/10

Whilst not a classic, it wasn’t bad for a race in the desert. Having real competition at the front, and a very tight midfield battle helps. 

ENDING 9 / 10

It hardly gets better than a dice for the win between the two best cars and their equivalent human talents.

OVERALL RATING 25 / 30

A good start to the season, and one of the better Bahrain Grands Prix. You weren’t sure who was going to get the win all race, and there was enough happening elsewhere to keep you interested / awake for those on the other side of the world.

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result – Great & Grape

Here we go through the field and highlight the three drivers we think deserve a little extra love, and one driver whose had the grapest weekend of all.

These points get added to our Driver of the Season. 3-2-1 for the Great and minus one point for the Grapest races.

It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.

THE GREAT  – MAX VERSTAPPEN

Probably should have won the Bahrain Grand Prix, but Mercedes got the tactic battle slightly better in the race. Actually had a go for victory, which is why he admired. Pity the pass at turn four didn’t quite work out as the bravery should have been rewarded.

THE GREAT – LEWIS HAMILTON

Doesn’t appear to have the outstanding front running car this season, but still found a way to win. Things do become habits we guess. Held a charging Verstappen off well in the end.

THE GREAT – LANDO NORRIS

Best of the rest all race. Great start and good early racing set him up nicely for the evening’s event. Beating his illustrious team mate is not easy but can chalk up a 1-0 in the race.

THE GREAT – SERGIO PEREZ

A good race day recovery after starting from the pitlane in a car that was debatable whether it would last a solid points finish will keep the wolves at bay for a while. He’ll need to do better in qualifying if he is not to be sacked at season’s end.

THE GREAT – YUKI TSUNODA

A point on debut, and showed flashes of real pace all weekend.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Charles Leclerc – Another solid performance and at least the Ferrari is a piece of shit in 2020.

Fernando Alonso – A good not great return. Made it to Q3 unlike his team mate and has Ocon under control in the race. The Alpine isn’t as quick as last season, but you have to think the double world champion will get the best out of it.

THE GRAPE – NIKITA MAZEPIN

Looked not great in qualifying, then spun out on the first lap in the race. Sure the Haas isn’t very quick, and sure he is a rookie, but is probably afforded less charity than others because of being a jerk off the track.

DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Sebastian Vettel – A lost opportunity to make a championship interesting. Beat Lewis to Pole but couldn’t hang on in the race. DNF not his fault but still.

Esteban Ocon – Anonymous weekend.

Pierre Gasly – Ruined his race running into Daniel Ricciardo.

Daniel Ricciardo – Underwhelming slightly in the race. Perhaps we can blame Gasly at this point. Lost out to his team mate early and was there fore at the blunt end of strategy for the rest of the race.

Valettri Bottas – Crap pitstop harmed his race of finishing third. Oh he did anyway.

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result – Martini Trophy

A feature on this website is determining the driver of the year. 

This recognises not just the driver with the most amount of points at the end of the year, but factoring performance against their team mate, possibly outperforming the car, and a nod to our Great and Grape above. A full explanation is below the results.

The Martini Trophy is named after one of our favourite F1 drivers of all time, the underrated Pierluigi Martini.

CURRENT STANDINGS

2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result – Quick Stats

Here are the quickest and more interesting stats from the weekend. Of course this will build as the season progresses and there’s more interesting stats to share.