Pre-Bahrain Live

Daniel ???

Williams is just two broken chassises and a dream god bless

Not only did he set the fastest lap of the race, but he actually BROKE the lap record for the CIRCUIT

Daniel Ricciardo you will forever be famous

Bahrain GP Highlights

It's lights out and away we go for the first time in 2024! Here's what happened in case you missed it:

Max 31 seconds ahead of P2 (Perez) for a bit (and then 41 seconds ahead later)

Zhou Guanyu early pit -> Held P10 for multiple laps (dropped to P17 after pit)

Charles Leclerc locks up...several times

Sainz overtakes Leclerc, gets overtaken, overtakes him again

Mercedes engine (and hence, the Williams car too) having issues with overheating and power

Sargent almost retires from the race after a mechanical issue, ends up 1 full minute slower than P19 and unable to regain his position :(

Albon having issues with the screen on his wheel (most likely too bright for a night race)

Piastri comes out of pits and has the inside line, but Hamilton overtakes him

Russel and Leclerc battle for 4th, Russel locks up and Leclerc overtakes him after a failed attempt before

Ricciardo and Tsunoda chasing Magnussen, with RB making a call to do a driver swap that happened unfortunately too late. The RBs were lapped by Verstappen seconds later.

[ Sainz overtaking Leclerc the first time]

RESULTS

P1 - Max Verstappen, ahead of his teammate by 22 seconds to get his 8th consecutive win!

P2 - Checo Perez, ahead of Sainz by 2.6 seconds

P3 - Carlos Sainz, who also won driver of the day!

P4: Charles Leclerc, after seemingly getting his brakes in check and passing Russel

P5, 6, 7: The Brits, with Norris in a Mercedes sandwich

P8, 9, 10: Piastri ahead of the two Aston Martins by a pretty large margin

P11: Zhou Guanyu, who I personally voted driver of the day for somehow keeping the same set of tires (SOFTS!!) from Lap 10-29, and holding P9/10 for 13 laps

P12, 13, 14: The RBs behind Magnussen, with Daniel trying to catch him after a team ordered driver swap

P15- Alex Albon

P16- Nico Hulkenberg, who qualified P10 again this year

P17, 18: The two Alpines, Ocon in front

P19- Valtarri Bottas

P20- Logan Sargent, who had a mechanical issue and went out, before rejoining the race

Anybody that's feeling worried about Daniel's current quali performance and in particular his gap to Yuki (especially after having to listen to Will Buxton repeat every ten minutes on last weekend's broadcast that "Daniel's average quali gap to Yuki is the exact same as NDV's") needs to have a look at this brilliant data analysis by u/tomedunn on reddit.

Obviously Daniel ideally still needs to find a decent chunk of time vs Yuki in quali, but it's nowhere near as dire as Buxton (and many others) are making it out to be, and I think it does also corroborate Daniel's claim that this is not in any way a McL situation.

it’s been 84 years

Daniel's probably watching the shit show that is Red Bull (VCARB included) this weekend and sighing in relief bcs that doesn't have to be him anymore

Please tell me this is not the name of his farm. In all honesty he really couldn’t come up with something better than “Ranchland”?