While much has changed in Formula 1 between the last race of 2021 and the start of the new season, one significant factor remained for the season-opening race: Bahrain is a punishing track for rubber.
With two teams fighting for the lead at the front, the drivers pushed each other into fairly aggressive two-stop strategies at first.
Eventually Red Bull took a gamble, and brought second-placed Max Verstappen in for a third stop. This was a classic piece of aggressive strategy by Red Bull, pitting both cars on the same lap to provoke a reaction from Ferrari, who had to bring Carlos Sainz Jnr in the next time around to keep his position safe from Sergio Perez.
But just as that was promising to give us a dramatic run to the flag, Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri caught fire, the Safety Car was summoned, and almost everyone joined the Red Bull driver in fitting another set of soft tyres.
In the first race since the ‘Q3 tyre rule’ was scrapped, almost every driver lined up on the soft tyres…