The new season is here, and the first race picked up where the 2021 F1 season finished. Well apart from the manufactured finish, trophy giving, tantrums and life changing moments. Our thoughts and quick review of the first race of the season is here with our 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap, Review & Summary
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to in the laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
2022 Bahrain Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap, Review & Summary gives you just enough to catch up on Monday morning.
An do stand by for our Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far.
Or read our 2021 Driver of the Year article from last year. Plus a whole bunch of 2021 stats.
2022 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. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
GRID – LEC VER SAI PER HAM BOT MAG ALO RUS GAS
Lap 1 – Leclerc gets of the line best and immediately chops across the track which works as he maintains first place into the first corner. Verstappen and Sainz hold their grid position. Lewis Hamilton gains a spot and Kevin Magnussen gains two at the expense of Sergio Perez. Other gains are seen from George Russell and Pierre Gasly. Valtteri Bottas continues his poor record of race starts and drops from 6th to 14th. The McLarens had a shocker too. Ricciardo is last and Norris 17th, which is down four places.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI HAM MAG PER RUS GAS ALO OCO
Lap 3 – First notable in race overtaking move sees Sergio Perez getting past Kevin Magnussen for fifth. Two laps later George Russell repeats the move. It’s all good, Magnussen is now where he started on the grid.
Lap 4 – Leclerc leads well enough with just over a second gap to Verstappen, and his team mate four seconds behind. Verstappen reports over the radio he doesn’t like the sound of his engine mid corner.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI HAM PER RUS MAG GAS ALO OCO
Lap 6 – Esteban Ocon get a five second penalty for running into Mick Schumacher.
Lap 9 – TV seems to be concentrating on the battles in the midfield, probably trying to prove to the world that the new regulations do make overtaking more easy. At the front Charles Leclerc in 2.5 seconds in front of Max Verstappen. For interest Lewis Hamitlon is 9 seconds behind in 4th and is under pressure from Sergio Perez.
Lap 10 – Sergio Perez gets past Lewis Hamilton quite easily along the second straight.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER HAM RUS MAG GAS OCO ALO
Lap 11 – McLarens are third last and last. Daniel Ricciardo sure is not improving on his 2021. A common theme of Mercedes falling backwards so far this season.
Lap 12 – Lewis Hamilton makes the tyre first pit stop of the day. He puts on hard tyres. He comes out in 11th between the Alfa Romeos, briefly. Hamilton’s car snakes through turn one with no grip and loses 11th to Guanyu Zhou. Hamilton takes the place back a lap later.
Lap 14 – Leclerc is now 3.5 seconds in front of Verstappen, as Perez is advised via radio that they are switching to Plan B. Verstappen pits for tyres. So does Sainz. As does half the top ten. Verstappen and Sainz return to the track in 4th/5th.
Lap 16 – Leclerc, Perez and Russell all pit. The earlier stop has worked for Red Bull with Verstappen right on Leclerc’s tail now as he exits the pitlane, and shadows him for the next lap.
Lap 17 – Max Verstappen overtakes Charles Leclerc into turn one, but the Ferrari driver sticks to the Red Bull and passes him back into turn four. At least these two can race without running into each other.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER HAM RUS MAG GAS ALO STR
Lap 18 – A repeat of the previous lap as Verstappen dives down into turn one from a mile back and takes Leclerc into the first corner again. But once more Leclerc gets him back into turn four.
Lap 19 – Once again Verstappen gets past Leclerc into the first corner, but he locks his tyres badly and Leclerc get by immediately. At least you can give the new rules a tentative thumbs up for the racing.
While this is going on, the front duo are eight second in front of Carlos Sainz in third. It’s an extra 10 second to Lewis Hamilton in fifth.
Lap 21 – Looks like the party’s over at the front with Leclerc edging away. In worse news, the first of the sleep nods arrives for this author thanks to the 1am kick off. We miss the days where Melbourne kicked off the season. Further back Sergio Perez is the fastest man on the circuit. Haas’ pace isn’t a fluke – Magnussen is still 7th. Nottas is still being punished for his poor start And the McLarens suck. The two McLaren drivers have just two Williams and Lance Stroll between them, which sums it all up.
Lap 24 – Carlos Sainz is heard on radio to consider three tyre stops as is the wear rate at the moment. He’ll probably need to do something and Perez looks like primed to steal that last podium spot.
Lap 28 – Lewis Hamilton pits for a second set of tyres. It’s just gone halfway, he rejoins in 8th.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER RUS MAG GAS HAM OCO BOT
Lap 31 – Max Verstappen pits from second. Wonder if Leclerc and Ferrari will respond and we get some more great racing?
Lap 32 – Leclerc does indeed pit. But this time it isn’t as close as the last pit stops and Leclerc stays ahead, and with a cushion of just over a second. The Ferrari stop was half a second quicker. Verstappen seems quite grumpy. Based on the previous two stints, as long there’s no mechanical issues, Leclerc looks good for the win.
Lap 34 – Sainz, Perez and Russell complete the top six pit stops.
Lap 38 – Replays show Sainz is nearly collected by a lapped Alex Albon in the Williams. Nice intra team battle between the Alpines too.
Lap 42 – Leclerc is now over four seconds in front of Max Verstappen, and the Ferrari looks better in race trim here, and slightly better on its tyres.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER HAM RUS MAG GAS OCO TSU
Lap 44 – Red Bull are shaking things up, both of their drivers pit for new tyres. Verstappen falls behind Sainz, and Perez falls behind Hamilton.
Lap 46 – SAFETY CAR – Pierre Gasly’s Alpha Tauri is on fire at the side of the road. This brings out the Safety Car in a copy of the late race Safety Car that won him a World Championship. Difference here though, is leader Leclerc gets to pit for new tyres, and they sacked Michael Masi. But we should get a late race burst.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER HAM RUS MAG BOT OCO SCH
Lap 48 – Replays show leader Charles Leclerc nearly ran up the back of the Safety Car.
Lap 49 – Lapped cars can overtake, and this time they do it properly.
Lap 51 – Safety Car exits and the race restarts for the last six laps.
The top nine cars stay as they were after the restart. Carlos Sainz on Max Verstappen looks the most likely move. Tsunoda steals Mick Schumacher’s potential first point of his career.
Lap 52 – Charles Leclerc sets fastest lap, which probably settles the win now.
Lap 54 – Max Verstappen continues to moan about his car. Carlos Sainz is right on his tail and gets past the Red Bull to make it a Ferrari 1-2. Verstappen slows to a crawl at the end of the lap. Looks like he was right about his car breaking down. He retires in the pits.
Lap 57 – Sergio Perez, under pressure from Lewis Hamilton spins at the first corner. Perez advises that is was his engine locking up. With all the excitement of the start of the lap, thankfully the yelling of F1 commentator David Croft reminds us to acknowledge Charles Leclerc winning the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix.
FINAL ORDER – LEC SAI HAM RUS MAG BOT OCO TSU ALO ZHO
2022 Bahrain Grand Prix Result
RACE RATING
Was it a good race, loads of action, tense, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest.
We rate the big race itself 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
After all the testing, the quotes playing down and talking up their 2022 cars, sandbagging and not, we finally got to see the genuine pace of all the cars.
Looks like we have a genuine battle at the front with Red Bull and Ferrari. And Mercedes looks a clear third best. Further down the Ferrari engine cars are thriving and Mercedes engine cars have dropped badly.
ON TRACK ACTION – 7 /10
Some nice racing between leader Leclerc and Verstappen after the first pit stops. And more than enough in the midfield for now. Very few clashes, which makes a nice change from 2021.
ENDING 9 / 10
Tyre wear made the last section of the race a little dull. Or maybe that was the hour of the race. The additional pit stops from Red Bull livened it up a notch. Then a car fire brought out the Safety Car too. The Max Verstappen’s car broke down. Then Perez spins off at turn one.
OVERALL RATING 26 / 30
The first race is always exciting, even when it isn’t. But this edition of the Bahrain Grand Prix was quite good with enough action to keep one awake, and it’s always great to finally see the order of the field.
2021 Bahrain Grand Prix Result
GREAT & GRAPE OF THE RACE
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 / -2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – CHARLES LECLERC
Takes pole against the expected logic and drives a magnificent race out in front. Handles the battle for first well against Max Verstappen.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
CARLOS SAINZ – Got a good car underneath him, and should get that first win this season based on Bahrain Grand Prix form. But second place in the first race will do nicely.
LEWIS HAMILTON – Got a podium he probably didn’t think he’d get at the start of the race.
KEVIN MAGNUSSEN – A late inclusion to the 2022 season and he probably couldn’t believe his luck when qualified seventh and ran in the top ten for the whole race. Gifted fifth with the demise of the Red Bulls.
VALTTERI BOTTAS – His usual crap start saw him drop from 6th to lower midfield, but he fought back well to get points, and his qualifying was sensational. Seems the Ferrari engine helps right now.
YUKI TSUNODA – Managed to avoid trouble and get some points.
GUANYU ZHOU – Points on debut for the first ever Chinese F1 driver.
THE GRAPE-EST – BOTH McLARENS
Circulating in 16th and 17th (of 19) at the end, but were dead last at times during the race. And it was Daniel Ricciardo in front of Norris, so the problems not limited to the Australian for a change.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
MAX VERSTAPPEN – Not that he drove a bad race, but the end result would not be what he was expecting. Especially given how fast the car seemed. He missed out on pole, looked to have settled for second, then his car broke down with a few laps to go.
SERGIO PEREZ – As above, a good race wasted by unreliability.
2022 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race sometime tomorrow as it is currently being calculated.
