@LewisHamilton fends-off @Max33Verstappen to claim thrilling #BahrainGP victory. #F1

Lewis Hamilton held off a fast-charging Max Verstappen in an epic closing-race battle to claim victory at the season-opening 2021 Bahrain GP, with the latter giving back the position in a late pass.

Mercedes and Red Bull Racing opted for different tyre strategies, with Verstappen’s tyre life advantage in his second stint meaning he was hunting down Hamilton after leading the early stages of the Grand Prix from pole.

With four laps remaining, Verstappen put in a move around the outside of the Briton at turn four, which had been heavily observed for track limits by the FIA, and as the Red Bull driver went too wide off the kerb, he was told to give the place back further around the tour.

Verstappen was able to get back close to the Mercedes on the last lap but could not attempt another move and lost out by 0.745 seconds at the finish.

When the 56 lap Bahrain GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen covered Hamilton by immediately moving to defend the inside line into the first corner, successfully defending his lead whilst Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc put the narrowly slow-starting Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas under-pressure for third place.

Verstappen lead Hamilton around for the rest of the opening tour, with Leclerc getting by Bottas at turn four, shortly before the race was stabilised after Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin dropped his Ferrari-powered VF-21 racer by himself running through the turn three corner and spun off into the barriers.

The Grand Prix, which was cut to 56 laps after Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez saw his Honda-powered RB16B come to a halt on the formation lap before restarting his engine and got running again to start from the pit-lane, restarted on the fourth lap, with Verstappen leaving it as late as possible to return to racing speed due to headwind on the blowing down the main-straight.

After hitting the throttle again just before the finish line, Verstappen rapidly snatched the inside line again to defend on the rundown to turn one, with Leclerc also attacking Hamilton’s Mercedes to Verstappen’s left-hand side.

However, the race was neutralised again as Uralkali Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher became the second driver from the Kannapolis-Banbury outfit to have an incident all by himself as the German spun at the exit of turn four on the safety car restart lap, whilst just in-front of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly clipped the left-rear of Daniel Ricciardo’s MCL35M and lost his front wing, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll tangled at the final apex of the double turns eight and nine complex.

The various incidents were cleaned up by the deployment of the virtual safety car, which ended as the leaders headed towards the turn eight hairpin on the fifth tour – meaning race-leader Verstappen did not have to worry about defending turn one for a third time.

But a suspected differential issue was causing the Dutchman problems as he reported a strange feeling when applying the throttle to his RB16B racer, which caused Mercedes to tell Bottas the lead was “all to play for” once he fought with Leclerc using DRS assistance into the first corner on the sixth lap.

The issue did not appear to be causing Verstappen any further problems during the next stage of the race, as he and Hamilton continued to increase their gap to Bottas with a series of laps in the low 1:36’s, with the other F1 W12 falling a chunk further back each time.

The lead at the front stabilised approaching the two-second mark, with Verstappen looking in full control.

However, on the 13^th tour, Mercedes decided to bring Hamilton in for an unexpected early stop – just after Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso had become the first soft tyre runner to pit – and swapped his mediums for hards.

Hamilton’s pace on the fresher rubber was very strong that it was rapidly a like-for-like strategy and would mean that Verstappen could lose out in any case, so Red Bull opted to leave him out until lap 17, when he came in for another set of C3 yellow-branded mediums – a lap after Bottas put on the harder compounds.

Hamilton’s gap when Verstappen emerged from the pits was just over seven seconds, but the Dutchman quickly began eating into the advantage.

A string of laps in the 1:34’s against Hamilton’s touring in the mid 1:35’s meant Verstappen had nearly halved the Briton’s lead by the 24^th tour, before the gap neutralised for a period.

But Verstappen was able to get back into the 1:34’s and again began closing-in on Hamilton, getting within two seconds on the 28^th lap, at the end of, which Mercedes brought the reigning champion in for another set of the C2 white side-walled harder tyres, wary of a Red Bull undercut.

Verstappen therefore reclaimed the race lead and remained out on track on his mediums until the end of the 39^th lap, with Hamilton evenly cutting the Dutchman’s gap out front to just under 16 seconds.

The result saw Verstappen facing an 8.8 second deficit as he rejoined the track from his final stop, but with 10-lap fresher tyres, which he quickly used to his advantage, began chomping into Hamilton’s lead once again – posting the fastest lap with a 1:33.228 on his first full lap out of the pits versing Hamilton’s 1:34.334.

After quickly cutting down the gap with several more tours in the 1:33’s, Verstappen’s chase slowed down a touch – although the Red Bull driver continued to reduce Hamilton’s advantage as they went through lapped traffic by around half a second a lap each time.

Verstappen eventually got within DRS range with five laps remaining, using it to setup his momentarily successful fourth corner pass.

After handing back the lead, Verstappen made a big slide into turn 13 near the end of lap 53 and the Dutchman struggled to close up back behind the Mercedes, eventually running out of time.

Hamilton crossed the line to claim his 95th-career victory at the 2021 Bahrain GP by 0.745 seconds ahead of Verstappen.

Bottas finished 37.383 seconds adrift of race-winning team-mate Hamilton after a slow second pit-stop had dropped the Finn a further 10 seconds behind the leaders and opted for a late stop to hunt down the fastest lap bonus point on the final lap.

McLaren’s Lando Norris finished fourth having fought with Leclerc shortly after the Monegasque-youngster had been overtaken by Bottas in the earlier stages and was followed home by a charging Red Bull of Perez, who recovered from his formation lap problems to take fifth place following a three-stop strategy.

Leclerc completed the top five, ahead of McLaren’s Ricciardo and ahead of new Ferrari team-mate Sainz, with Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda beating Aston Martin’s Stroll to ninth place at the end of the top ten runners.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel wound up 15^th after being slapped with a penalty for colliding with Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon in the late stages of the Grand Prix with the latter eventually taking 13^th.

Gasly and Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi retired in the pits later on, while Alonso was the other casualty after suffering a rear brake issue in the mid-way point of the race.

The Top Three

Bahrain GP Winner – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12:

“What a difficult race that was. Pitting early, we knew would be difficult, it was going to take something really special. I just managed to hold him off – it was one of the hardest races I’ve had for a while.”

2^nd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“I can see the positives; we’re really putting the fight on them. We scored good points.”

3^rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12:

“Disappointing, for sure. As a team we got good points, but from my side it felt like we went on the defensive side. Then I had a slow pitstop which took away any opportunities…”

Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2021 Race Results Classification (56 Laps)

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1064/bahrain.html

You can see the full Formula 1 World Driver’s and Constructor’s Championship standings at the link: 2021 F1 World Championship Standings

Round two of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola) in Emilia Romagna, Italy for the Formula 1 Pirelli Gran Premio Del Made In Italy E Dell’emilia Romagna 2021 from Friday April 16-18.

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