After a stunning battle through Sector 2, Alonso passed Sainz on Lap 45 to secure his first podium finish since Qatar 2021.
In the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, Max Verstappen defeated teammate Sergio Perez to win for Red Bull. Fernando Alonso finished third as Charles Leclerc withdrew from the competition. Verstappen had a strong start, but teammate Perez fell back and lost second place to Leclerc – while Carlos Sainz couldn’t quite take P3 away from the Red Bull. All but Kevin Magnussen (P15) started the race on soft tyres. The current champion extended his lead and ultimately prevailed by more than ten seconds. With both Red Bull drivers using similar soft-soft-hard driving styles, Perez completed the one-two.
When Lance Stroll lunged at teammate Alonso into Turn 4 and hit the rear-right of his car, allowing both Mercedes ahead, Aston Martin’s hopes of disrupting the podium battle appeared to have been dashed on Lap 1. However, Leclerc’s engine problem forced him to retire on lap 41, shattering Ferrari’s chances of the podium. Alonso had just pulled off an absolutely brilliant manoeuvre to pass Lewis Hamilton for fifth place down the inside of Turn 10. After a stunning battle through Sector 2, Alonso passed Sainz on Lap 45 to secure his first podium finish since Qatar 2021. Alonso then went on the offensive.
Sainz fought off a brief attack from Hamilton, who finished fifth overall, and settled for fourth as a result. Stroll was perhaps more relieved to see Alonso finish on the podium than he was to not receive a penalty for hitting his teammate on lap one. Although George Russell was passed by the Aston Martin in the second pit stops and finished seventh, the Canadian made an admirable recovery from his wrist injury to finish sixth between the Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas finished a strong eighth for Alfa Romeo by taking advantage of his competitors’ shaky starts, while Pierre Gasly came from P20 for Alpine and finished ninth after three pit stops. After a strong start, Alex Albon finished 10th for Williams, and Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri just missed out on the final point. While Zhou Guanyu, driving for Alfa Romeo, pitted on the penultimate lap of the race to move Kevin Magnussen, whose hard-hard-soft gambit didn’t result in points, up to P13, rookie Logan Sargeant battled with him for 12th place on his debut.
In his AlphaTauri debut, Nyck de Vries took P14, dropping Nico Hulkenberg to 15th with a five-second time penalty. Alfa Romeo’s Zhou was ranked 16th, and Lando Norris struggled in the race after making a sluggish pit stop, which caused him to fall down the leaderboard. The McLaren driver finished third in the standings after a final-lap pit stop for soft tyres. Esteban Ocon had a disastrous opening race for Alpine, receiving a five-second penalty for incorrectly lining up on the grid, a further 10-second penalty for incorrectly serving that penalty, and a further five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Alpine made the late decision to retire him.
Oscar Piastri’s debut was cut short after just 13 laps when he pulled into the McLaren pits with an electrical problem. Leclerc’s retirement on lap 41 stunned everyone. Alonso, on the other hand, was ecstatic to place third for the first time in over a year. And Red Bull had a perfect start to 2023, but anything can happen. In the first race of the previous season, both Red Bulls retired.