Red Bull have dominated the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix to the point that Mercedes driver George Russell says they’ll win every race of the 2023 Formula One campaign.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen started on pole alongside teammate Sergio Perez and the pair clinched a comfortable one-two finish in Bahrain.
Verstappen won by 11.987 seconds from Perez, with the Mexican a staggering 38.637 seconds ahead of the next best, Fernando Alonso who rounded out the podium.
Red Bull’s normal rivals were far less impressive, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz coming fourth, while Charles Leclerc was forced to retire.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton came in fifth, while Russell was down in seventh, with team principal Toto Wolff saying Red Bull were on “another planet” and admitting they’ll need to re-think their own engine plans to compete.
Russell said: “I don’t think anybody’s going to be fighting with them this year, they should win every single race this season. That’s my bet.
“With the performance they’ve got, I don’t see anybody challenging.
“Their pace seems weaker this weekend than it was in testing, which was a bit strange, but they’ve got it easy at the moment and they can do what they like.
“They might not get Pole all the time, because we know that Ferrari are very competitive in qualifying, but when it comes to race pace, I think they’re in a very strong position.”
Race winner Verstappen revelled in victory, while Leclerc was left wanting an explanation after his car ground to a halt without power, having been in third at the time.
We definitely had the car to fight for the podium. I mean, honestly, the podium was there,” Leclerc said.
“We had a good gap behind, I was managing the pace, everything felt good, so it is a shame. Now I just hope we can look into it, understand what went wrong and don’t have this problem anymore.”
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Racing News Articles…