Third and fourth place, Red Bull unbeatable
Scuderia Ferrari is the second force on the grid, behind an apparently unbeatable Red Bull but also clearly ahead of Mercedes and McLaren. This is the verdict of the first Grand Prix of the 2024 Formula 1 season, which saw the Maranello team celebrate the third step of the podium with Carlos Sainz and a stoic fourth position with Charles Leclerc, hindered for a long time by brake problems that negatively affected the entire first part of the race. At the end of the Grand Prix, team principal Frederic Vasseur tried to assess the situation, expressing satisfaction (but not too much) with the final result at the 5.412 km Bahrain International Circuit located in Sakhir, Bahrain.
Fred Vasseur’s comments
“We expected something better,” confessed the French manager when asked about the race in front of the Sky Sport F1 microphones, “but considering the circumstances and the problems we had during the race, I believe that overall, it is a good result. We did not expect to have this brake problem that penalized Charles enormously in the first half of the race,” Fred Vasseur continued. “Carlos made a good comeback and managed to fight with Perez. We knew in advance that in the last stint, we would use the hard tires, and they would use the soft ones. The goal was to put some pressure on Perez, and we were a bit faster in the end, but not enough. We finished 2.5 seconds behind him at the end, so overall, I think Carlos’s race was clean. He didn’t start great, but then he recovered quite quickly, fought, and managed to find himself in a good position on the track.” – the Ferrari team principal added at the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
