F1 Driver Ratings: Bahrain 2019

Lewis Hamilton stole victory from Charles Leclerc with nine laps to go during the Bahrain Grand Prix to win his first race of the season. Valtteri Bottas made it another Mercedes 1-2 after he eased past the limping Leclerc. Bottas remains as the championship leader by just one point over Hamilton.

Leclerc managed to salvage a third place with some help from a race ending safety car but it really was heartbreak for 21-year-old as miscombustion on one of the cylinders in the engine cost him a maiden win.

The order you see below is the finishing order of the race.

2019 Bahrain Grand Prix – Sakhir

Lewis Hamilton: 9/10

Valtteri Bottas: 7.5/10

Charles Leclerc: 9/10

Max Verstappen: 7.5/10

Sebastian Vettel: 4.5/10

Lando Norris: 8.5/10

Kimi Raikkonen: 8.5/10

Pierre Gasly: 5.5/10

Alexander Albon: 8/10

Sergio Perez: 7/10

Antonio Giovinazzi: 5/10

Daniil Kvyat: 6.5/10

Kevin Magnussen: 7/10

Lance Stroll: 5/10

George Russell: 7/10

Robert Kubica: 6/10

RETIRED

Nico Hulkenberg: 8.5/10

Daniel Ricciardo: 7.5/10

Carlos Sainz: 9/10

Romain Grosjean: 5.5/10

Three drivers got the highest rating this time round (9) – Hamilton, Leclerc and Sainz. I could not separate them. All of them were very impressive but all for different reasons. Here is a quick rundowns.

Hamilton – the Mercedes was not the best car but he got pretty much everything out of the car that he could in qualifying and the race. He slipped to 4th initially but soon put himself in good position by overtaking Bottas and undercutting Vettel after the first round of pitstops. Vettel got him back but the way Hamilton set about overtaking Vettel the second time round was phenomenal. He used his brain so well to just send the car around the outside of Vettel from a long way back into turn four and it nearly paid off. Next time round, it did as he went around the outside of the German again which would turn out to be a race winning move.

Leclerc – A stellar pole position lap and equally impressive race. Leclerc dropped to third but he showed excellent pace to take advantage of a mistake from Bottas and overtook teammate Vettel. He then was able to build a 10 second lead and it looked like the race was his until something went wrong with one of the cylinders. Leclerc will win races this year, it is just a matter of when and how many. You can’t not feel sorry for him to lose the race like that.

Sainz – Although he retired, Carlos Sainz had a much better Bahrain GP compared to Australia. His qualifying lap was excellent and he was running very strong until he collided with Max Verstappen which was a racing incident in my opinion. It broke his front wing and then his race was ruined from then. But if his early pace was anything to go by, Sainz could have even been on the podium because he looked quicker than the Red Bull and would have been in a position to capitalise from the Leclerc problems. The McLaren is a strong car but I still think Sainz was outstanding and perhaps it was an underrated drive from him as much of the attention was on Lando Norris after he took an excellent 6th.

Sebastian Vettel takes the worst rating with a 4.5. For whatever reasons he was consistently slower than Leclerc and he made another one of those mistakes which we saw numerous times last season. It was very similar to his Italy and USA spins from 2018. To me, although Vettel won’t admit it, it looked like Vettel simply got on the power a bit too hard as he desperately tried to outaccelerate Hamilton to stop him overtaking him. The strong winds did not help but it was a driver error when the pressure was high and when he did not want to lose out to Hamilton again.