(PRIMASPORT) SEPANG – After 301 days, Formula 1 finally saw Max Verstappen win his first race of the season, the Bahrain Grand Prix held in Malaysia, which proved to be one of the most chaotic Sundays of the decade. This was demonstrated by the fact that the checkered flag arrived almost three and a half hours after the race was originally scheduled to start, when one could still only sense the chaos that would descend on Sepang throughout the day. It was a day that once again smiled on Kimi Antonelli, second and increasingly championship leader thanks to George Russell's retirement, and saw Ferrari finish third and fourth with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, after having nearly thrown away Saturday's excellent qualifying and a finally competitive SF-26. Despite a long, cold shiver in one of the day's many key moments.
The first occurred 40 minutes before the start, when Sepang was hit by the classic monsoon storm that had previously plagued several F1 races at the Malaysian circuit. Race officials decided to wait for better weather conditions, delaying the start by forty minutes. When the cars finally got underway behind the Safety Car, the new Formula 1 car revealed its full limitations: first Verstappen, leading the charge, and then several of his colleagues found themselves struggling with a software malfunction that prevented the gearbox from working properly. However, the Dutchman's Red Bull restarted immediately, with Hamilton, Leclerc, and even a Haas and a Cadillac having greater difficulties: the fact that they were four Ferrari-powered cars raised more than a few eyebrows. The difficulty in understanding the timing and, above all, in applying the rules, which prohibit overtaking under the Safety Car but with many cars proceeding at walking pace, caused another general halt to the race. And this time the wait before seeing some action again turns out to be a whole hour.
When the Bahrain Grand Prix finally begins, over an hour and a half later than scheduled, the track situation has radically changed: it's stopped raining and the asphalt appears dry. But this is a mistake, given the extremely rough Sepang track, which misleads many drivers, who find themselves on slick tires in a virtually undriveable condition. Among them are the two Ferraris of Hamilton and Leclerc, with the former refusing an additional pit stop and the latter instead pitting and restarting at the back of the pack. The two Mercedes cars are leading, extremely agile off the start and capable of surprising Max Verstappen, who, however, will have plenty of time to rebuild his Sunday. On lap ten, Bottas ends up in the gravel and the Safety Car comes out again, nullifying the Maranello pit wall's gamble once and for all: the two Ferraris drop to fifteenth and seventeenth place, and their Sunday seems definitively over.
And yet, at the restart, the entire race was rewritten once again: both Verstappen and Russell overtook Antonelli, who managed to close the gap on his Mercedes teammate in a matter of laps but was no longer in a position to challenge for the win. Meanwhile, Ferrari confirmed their enormous progress of recent weeks, gaining position after position, with Hamilton appearing particularly inspired and posting the fastest lap time for a long time despite using medium tires versus everyone else's softs. For the Reds, it seemed like a lukewarm and tasteless stew was on the cards, until another retirement (Albon's) prompted a Virtual and then a Safety Car, this time interpreted impeccably by the Maranello engineers, whose drivers returned to fifth and sixth place. But there's still one final twist to write: before the Sepang race restarts for the final time, Russell's Mercedes goes silent, forced to retire and likely lose the championship. Antonelli, now 84 points ahead of his teammate, settles for second place behind Verstappen, while both Hamilton and Leclerc overtake an excellent Hadjar to finish third and fourth. Honorable mention also goes to Fernando Alonso, an extraordinary eighth ahead of a disastrous Lando Norris, who missed his braking point on the final restart, risking a rookie strike and having to settle for ninth place. This is the final twist on a Sunday that confirms how F1, rewritten by the new regulations, can be crazy and exciting, but perhaps so chaotic and difficult to follow and understand as to be almost sick. (PRIMASPORT)