After the horrific crash Romain Grosjean miraculously endured the week before at the Bahrain GP, some team line-up changes were made ahead of the Sahkir GP which took place on the outer track in Bahrain. Pietro Fittipaldi replaced the injured Grosjean. George Russell had big shoes to fill when he took Lewis Hamilton’s place in the Mercedes as he had tested positive for COVID-19, while Jack Aitken was to race for Williams in place of Russell that weekend.
Much attention was drawn to George and how he would perform that weekend. Very quickly he showed his value to Mercedes as he continued to impress. He had never been outqualified by a teammate and was looking to continue this stat against Valterri Bottas. It was an intense qualifying as both the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc showed pace to challenge the Mercedes cars but it was a great qualifying for the team as Bottas and Russell qualified 1st and 2nd, with the Brit only missing out on pole by 0.026s.
At lights out George Russell got off to a great start, overtaking Bottas for the lead at the first corner. In that same lap, just behind them, as Verstappen and Perez were catching Bottas, Charles Leclerc tried to make a move into the corner but the Ferrari clipped the back of the Racing Point, causing him to spin. Along with this, Max Verstappen who looked to be fine in relation to this incident then lost control and went into the barriers alongside Leclerc, both of whom could not continue the race. Perez however, made it back to the pits and re-joined the race in last place.
On lap 7 Carlos Sainz overtook Bottas in a brilliant move but Bottas quickly took back the position. By lap 20 Sergio Perez had charged his way up through the field and back into the points, in 10th place.
Nicholas Latifi stopped by the side of the track on lap 55 which then brought out the Virtual safety car. Perez, who was on a set of hard tyres, gained many places as other drivers took the opportunity to pit for new tyres. By lap 56 he was in 4th place after passing his teammate Lance Stroll and on lap 57 Perez overtook Esteban Ocon for 3rd place.
Lap 63 saw the safety car deployed because Jack Aitken driving in the Williams, had hit the wall not far from the pitlane, losing his front wing. Mercedes did a double stack where Russell had a bit of a slow stop (5.3s) as the team struggled with the front right and Bottas had a nightmare pitstop himself when the team weren’t happy with how the tyres were fitted, his pitstop being 27.4s and he dropped from 2nd to 5th.
On lap 64 Russell, who was leading the race, was called back into the pits by Mercedes as he had been fitted with a mixed set of tyres. On lap 69 Perez would then lead the race once the safety car had ended, followed by Ocon and Stroll in the other podium places.
By lap 70 Russell had caught up to Bottas and passed him, on laps 72 and 73 the Brit had made his way past Stroll and Ocon also with brilliant manoeuvres. Bottas’ tyres were wearing down and Sainz, on fresher tyres used the opportunity to over take him for 5th place. Ricciardo and Albon followed suit and also overtook the Mercedes driver who was struggling in the latter stages of the race.
Russell on the hunt for his first F1 win, had closed down the gap to Perez to 3 seconds but was called into the pit by his team on lap 79 for a puncture on the rear left tyre.
Sergio Perez saw the chequred flag on lap 87 to take his first win in Formula 1 and the first for Racing Point, while Ocon and Stroll completed the podium in 2nd and 3rd, a first podium for Ocon. Russell after his stellar qualifying and race only finished in 9th place after the puncture, earning him his first points in F1, while Bottas finished in 8th.
Hope you enjoyed that trip to the past! Make sure to stay tuned for future Flashback Fridays! You can find more content here on the blog and on our social media @thefastestsector (Instagram) and @_tfsofficial (Twitter)
Written by: Leslie Okafor
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