The 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix delivered exactly what the ‘new era’ of Formula One needed – spectacular on-track incidents, teammates scrapping for position, constructive team orders and, most importantly, no interfering stewarding.
Even after a late safety car bunched the pack up, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg left the rest of the field for dead. With a final gap or more than 20 seconds they again proved that the Mercedes cars are about as touchable as a National Gallery exhibition of MC Hammer paintings.
Lewis Hamilton took the victory from his Mercedes teammate, but not without a battle. On the softer ‘option’ tyres, Rosberg clawed at the back of Hamilton’s car but his efforts bore no fruit as his rival grabbed P1 by the scruff of the next and held tight until the checkered flag.
Pastor Maldonado again proved that he is not racing to make friends. It’s a good thing, too. After pestering Jean-Eric Vergne in the early stages, the Venezuelan rammed into the side of Esteban Gutierrez coming into turn one and launched his opponent’s car into a vertical flip. The Mexican driver walked away unscathed, but with no idea what had hit him.
Daniel Ricciardo qualified well, but with his 10-place grid penalty from Malaysia needed a cocktail of strategy and skilful driving to progress through the field. Twice he found himself behind the sister Red Bull car, but with a number of technical restrictions it was clear a charge wouldn’t be coming from Vettel.
This left the Australian to ask his team’s blessing for track position, making his case clear without demanding they comply.
Again Ricciardo proved that he isn’t afraid to take the challenge up to his teammate, illustrating (as if we didn’t know!) that he has the speed and tenacity to get past Vettel and press on toward the front runners. Despite just missing out on a podium finish, it’s clear Daniel’s mindset is on beating Vettel whenever possible regardless of their position in the race.
At Williams we were treated to another spirited performance between the two drivers. Following the team’s admission that they were wrong to issue team orders in Malaysia, Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were free to fight it out.
After losing out to his teammate off the starting line, Bottas stuck to the back of Massa’s car and jumped him through the first stint of pitstops. Unleashing years of frustration, Massa flung himself back into position.
Despite the pre-season hype, Williams haven’t been able to put together a truly impressive race weekend. Bahrain’s long straights exposed the weakness of both the Williams and Ferrari, who couldn’t match the Force India drivers – the latter taking home a swag of points and thrusting their team into second in the constructors’ standings.
In stark contrast to the unwelcoming protests of last year, Bahrain has shone a spotlight on all that is good about the new look Formula One. Fans finally have a lot to talk about, almost all of it positive.
And with the appeal against Ricciardo’s disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix to be heard between this race and the next, the two-week break before the Chinese Grand Prix will not be without incident.
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