Charles Leclerc claimed a brilliant win for Ferrari at the season-opening Bahrain GP while Max Verstappen suffered a late reliability failure as a new era of Formula 1 got off to a pulsating start under the lights in the desert.
Leclerc and Verstappen went toe to toe for much of the first race of the year, and had multiple brilliant wheel-to-wheel battles, before the world champion’s race was dramatically ended with a DNF with just three laps remaining.
That opened the door for Carlos Sainz to seal a Ferrari one-two, with F1’s most successful team returning to winning ways for the first time since 2019.
The agony was not over for Red Bull either as Sergio Perez, who was running third and was also had reliability concerns, spun when under pressure from Lewis Hamilton on the final lap following a Safety Car.
Hamilton then took an unlikely podium for Mercedes, who executed damage limitation to the extreme with George Russell in fourth.
