BAHRAIN REVIEW BY BEN STEVENS
Sunday
In a season that has given us so much to
anticipate, Sunday in Bahrain provided us
with something new – what would Valtteri
Bottas do from pole position?
As it turned out, not much. Able to hold
position off the line, Bottas was never able to
shake the P3-starting Ferrari of Sebastian
Vettel, and by the end had swapped positions.
Partly down to strategy, partly down to
driver, it was a stunning victory for the
Scuderia.
Able to hang with Bottas after jumping
Lewis Hamilton at the start, it didn’t take
long for Vettel to get his Ferrari back on-pace
after a disappointing Saturday. Sticking
to Bottas’ gearbox through his opening stint,
Vettel’s aggression was repaid in kind when
his team opted for an early stop, which paid
major dividends after the safety car came out
on lap 14, gifting him the lead. However while
Vettel was fortunate to take the lead of the
race, there was nothing lucky about how he
was able to control proceedings all the way to
the chequered flag.
Opting to save his soft tyres for his final
stint, Ferrari tasked Vettel with driving an
assured race from the restart, and that’s
exactly what he did. Vettel immediately
built a gap, and it forced Mercedes into some
serious strategic gymnastics (although
Hamilton’s penalty certainly didn’t help) of
which they didn’t quite stick the landing.