Less than a week after the end of pre-season testing, the Formula 1 cars are back on the Sakhir circuit for round one of 24 in the 2024 season, the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen is the defending champion and took the first of his 19 wins last season in Bahrain. Pre-season running suggests the Dutchman and his Red Bull team are again the ones to beat, but there are signs the field could be a little more competitive this time round.
- Charles Leclerc podium finish
- Yuki Tsunoda points finish
- Under 17.5 classified finishers
WATCH IN THE ZONE WITH JOHNNY HERBERT
Prancing Horse To Burst Out The Gate
Ferrari are traditionally well prepared for the start of a new Formula 1 season and this year looks no different as the Prancing Horses shaped well in pre-season testing last week.
Charles Leclerc finished second in each of the final two races of last season and has a host of strong performances in Bahrain on his CV.
The Monegasque racer should have won at Sakhir in 2019 but suffered engine trouble, did win in 2022, and was on course for a comfortable third place last year when his car ground to a halt.
Granted reliability, another podium finish could be there for the taking, even if the car does not prove a match for the mighty Red Bulls.
RB There For Yuki
One of the talking points of the off-season has been the closer relationship between Red Bull and their second team RB, as the former AlphaTauri outfit are now known.
The Faenza-based team had a decent finish to last season, picking up points in four of the last five races, and pre-season form suggests they are smack in the middle of the field performance-wise.
That should give them a solid base from which to attack the top 10 and Japanese racer Yuki Tsunoda looks underrated in the points finish markets.
The diminutive charger started last season with five consecutive top-11 finishes and could be set for a solid year in an improved machine.
Early-Season Issues Expected
While F1 cars in general are the most reliable they have ever been, they are arguably at their most vulnerable at the start of the season after only three days of on-track running and the drivers rusty after months away from racing.
Three cars failed to complete the 90% race distance required to be classified a finisher in Bahrain last year, and it could be worth betting at least that number fall short this weekend.
Backers in this market could consider themselves unlucky in 2022, when two of the three retirements happened in the final three laps, and in 2021 when two of the 18 official finishers had stopped on the track within the last five laps.
In 2020, despite a belated start to the campaign, only 11 drivers saw the chequered flag at the season opener in Austria.
