F1’s “chasing pack is not too far behind” Red Bull

Off the back of a near perfect 2023 season, Max Verstappen and Red Bull also dominated the 2024 season’s opening race in Bahrain with a heavily revised RB20.

Verstappen won last week’s race from pole after comfortably building a 22-second gap to team-mate Sergio Perez, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz another two seconds further back.

While the spectre of another one-sided season looms large, Piastri feels that Red Bull’s nearest rivals Ferrari, Mercedes and his McLaren team aren’t as far away as it looks.

“I feel like there’s some optimism and some hope,” the Australian said. “It’ll be interesting to see where we are this weekend.

“Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of our car and the strengths of the Red Bull, hopefully, we can be a bit closer here and at some other circuits, but it wasn’t as bad as some races last year.

“The biggest thing for us was that two tenths would have put us P2 [in qualifying], and even looking at Leclerc, he had the quickest lap Q2 that would have put him on pole.

“So, I think the chasing pack is not too far behind.”

Team-mate Lando Norris similarly also wasn’t overly concerned by Red Bull’s advantage.

“I don’t think it was concerning at all, honestly, considering that they spent a lot of time developing and making a new car for this year,” the Briton said.

“I’m pretty happy with how close we were to Red Bull. Even in qualifying, it wasn’t like Max had an easy one and it was that convincing.

“I’m sure they are still learning about the car. It’s a very different concept they have. They started their development on that car a long time before everyone else, so not a surprise at all.

“But I see a surprise at how close we were and how close a lot of teams were. Signs of hope for everyone, I would say.”

Norris expects the order behind Red Bull to shuffle around because the gaps between the chasing teams are small enough to fall in the range of circuit specific strengths and weaknesses.

“I’m hoping it will get shuffled around a little bit,” he said. “It’s close enough to say I don’t know what’s going to happen between us.

“It was clear that Ferrari was just that bit of a step ahead last weekend, Mercedes maybe a little bit closer to where we were, Aston surprisingly a little bit behind where we were thinking they were going to be. But it can easily change on this type of circuit.”

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