(ESP-ENG) Comenzó la F1 - Y pasaron cosas...

Hello friends, good vibes to all.

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Finally the day arrived, the lights of the Sakhir circuit were turned on to give way to a new Formula 1 season. After at least three months of hiatus, the single-seaters returned to the tracks with new designs, colors and most importantly with new drivers in the teams, which denotes and after having seen yesterday's race, that this will be a very hard-fought season. Why do I say so? - Because in addition to Red Bull, which is definitely not on another planet, they are in another galaxy, we have Ferrari, Mercedes and that fourth team in the fight that everything seems to indicate that it will be Aston Martin. We should not rule out McLaren and Alpine, but yesterday in Bahrain they did not look good at all, a complete disaster.

New faces. After that novel last year between Alpine - McLaren - Aston Martin there was a rotation of faces; an Alonso who came to replace Vettel and leaving in the street the French Alpine who not only lost the Asturian but also the promise of this sport Oscar Piastri who signed with McLaren. Otmar Szafnauer's team had to settle for Pierre Gasly to be Ocon's teammate and Alpha Tauri's team called Nyck De Vries, another of the names that are generating a lot of expectation this year. And not least the Hass people decided to let Mick Schumacher go, a mistake in my opinion, to bring in veteran Nico Hülkenberg. So that's more or less the grid for this new season, which I already told you yesterday would leave some very interesting things to see.

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First, let's talk a little bit about the Pole. On Saturday we saw things that we could more or less intuit that would happen in the race, although we know how unpredictable these are. I was surprised that the two Aston Martins got into Q3 making a monstrous qualifying with a happy and comfortable Fernando Alonso, the latter we would corroborate yesterday, the two Red Bull unreachable, Mercedes trying to be on top but it is seen that there are still things to solve, Ferrari was also solid but with them it is the same story as always, Saturdays with spectacular but the race day is another story. The reality is that the Pole was a little bit of what was expected, it was known that Aston Martin had good cars but not so good and that for me is incredible because it adds another competitor in this fight that has always been only two teams.

We arrived at Sunday, race day with a fairly common starting grid if you ask me. In the first row the two Red Bulls, further back the two Ferraris and in fifth place Don Fernando Alonso with his renewed Aston Martin chased by the two Mercedes. In my opinion, the race was very entertaining, even though the first places were always in the hands of the champion Max Verstappen and his teammate Checo Perez, so there was nothing interesting to see up there, in fact, little was seen of Max in the transmission due to the abysmal advantage he got at a certain moment. It is said that in his second pit stop he was told not to push the engine so hard, that there was no need for that and he still finished 1 second faster than the rest. Yesterday's performance should worry the rest, the Red Bull is way above the level.

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Let's comment on the negative first. The people of Alpine, more specifically Esteban Ocon had a race to forget, if I remember correctly there were 20 seconds of penalty for the Frenchman among so many wrong things he did, wrongly placed in the starting positions, access speed in the pits, etc.. These failures are not understandable at this level; at least Gasly, who started last, managed an important comeback to finish in ninth position and that Alpine was not a huge disaster. Continuing with the disappointments we cannot leave out McLaren, which I would say was worse than Alpine, the thing is that this fall was seen coming from Pole with a really poor performance.

Piastri se retiraría por un problema mecánico temprano en la carrera y Norris quedaría de último, nunca fue capaz de hacer algo productivo en pista, no se si estaba incomodo, las estrategias no funcionaron pero fue algo para el olvido. Una lastima porque si hay equipo con potencial son ellos, tienen dos pilotos jóvenes que son muy rápidos y buenos, esperemos que en Arabia Saudita puedan ser más competitivos y la temporada agarre otro curso. Y por último pero no menos importante está la Ferrari. Como les dije el sábado estuvieron bastante bien quedando de terceros y cuartos pero ayer volvieron los fantasmas de la temporada anterior y ya no está Binotto para echarle la culpa.

Piastri would retire due to a mechanical problem early in the race and Norris would be last, he was never able to do anything productive on track, I don't know if he was uncomfortable, the strategies didn't work but it was something to forget. A pity because if there is a team with potential it is them, they have two young drivers who are very fast and good, let's hope that in Saudi Arabia they can be more competitive and the season takes another course. And last but not least is Ferrari. As I said on Saturday they were quite good, finishing third and fourth but yesterday the ghosts of the previous season returned and Binotto is no longer there to blame them.

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Charles Leclerc would be out of the race due to a mechanical problem also around lap 41, with just under 20 laps to go. The disappointment of the Monegasque was evident in the radio communication and he had many chances to be on the podium, he came with a decent pace, at least better than his teammate Carlos Sainz who barely finished fourth. Leclerc came from winning last year and now being out it seems that history is repeating itself but in reverse because in 2022 it was Verstappen who dropped out here in Bahrain. The point is that Ferrari can recover, I see them competing at the top, I don't know if they are on par with Red Bull but I have no doubt that they have what it takes.

The good: Fernando Alonso. As a fan of this sport, seeing the Spaniard return to a podium is something to be happy about, especially when he does it with a car that looks good and a team that seems to be working for him. In a message on the radio he said that this car was a marvel to drive and that is a reflection of the state of mind and form that Alonso is in. He also had to overtake Sainz to climb to third place and he did it without any problem, while Hamilton, no matter how hard he tried, did not manage to climb to fourth place. What this tells us is that the Aston Martins are on par or even faster than the Mercedes themselves, and looking at the whole weekend it seems to be so.

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But undoubtedly the best of the night was the fight between Alonso and Hamilton, pure experience and skill what was lived in a couple of laps so that in the end it was the Asturian who won the pulse with maneuvers worthy of a world champion, a deadly zigzag that will surely be one of the best we will see this season. In the end the prize would go to Max with Checo in second place and a well-deserved third place for Alonso, who is already showing a lot of fear and respect. Stroll would come in sixth, putting Aston Martin in second place in the constructors' championship with 23 points ahead of Mercedes who scored 16. Be careful with this team, if they continue to show what we saw yesterday, this season can be very attractive.

The next race is in two weeks at the Jeddah circuit, a very particular one where we will see if what we saw yesterday was a mirage or an absolute reality. Very excited about this season, for the first time I see competitiveness not so much for the championship itself but for those second and third places that can be so important economically speaking.

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Well my people that's all for today, I hope you liked it.
¡Hugs to all, see you next time!