{"id":18869,"date":"2024-03-02T12:28:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T17:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=18869"},"modified":"2024-03-02T12:28:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T17:28:37","slug":"verstappen-wins-bahrain-gp-sainz-claims-podium-for-ferrari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/02\/verstappen-wins-bahrain-gp-sainz-claims-podium-for-ferrari\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen wins Bahrain GP, Sainz claims podium for Ferrari"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Max Verstappen took a commanding victory in Bahrain, with Carlos Sainz finishing first of the chasing in third.<\/h3>\n<p>There were question marks in the build-up to the Bahrain GP, and Verstappen&#8217;s controlled victory answered many of them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/01\/carlos-sainz-fastest-in-highly-competitive-bahrain-fp3\/\" target=\"_self\">Carlos Sainz<\/a> managed an impressive third place for Ferrari, but the SF-24 is still a few steps behind the reigning Champions.<\/p>\n<p>At least the Spaniard enjoyed a more quiet race than his teammate.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Leclerc struggled with persistent tyre issues throughout the race. Ultimately, he managed to come home in P4 &#8211; although the 26-year-old will feel there was potential for far more.<\/p>\n<p>George Russell didn&#8217;t experience the drop-off in performance that some anticipated. Despite initial flashes of pace, the W15 seemed comfortably 3rd-fastest as he crossed the line in 5th.<\/p>\n<p>The McLaren duo were just behind, cementing themselves as a top-5 team.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"SltFevfATHB9LV_AJaj7NA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2053324224\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'SltFevfATHB9LV_AJaj7NA',sig:'wK8oLZWRZW2XVty7Efoefsm-Ae0cOCo4S4m2WAC7zv4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2053324224',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Andrea Stella believes the MCL38 will perform better elsewhere, so today&#8217;s result was not a huge surprise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/03\/01\/lewis-hamilton-reveals-qualifying-sacrifice-to-maximise-race-pace\/\" target=\"_self\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a> was rather anonymous, claiming 8th place in a quiet Grand Prix. It seems his set-up direction did not produce the results he anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>Fernando Alonso was another driver whose race was rather uneventful. After an encouraging qualifying, the AMR24 proved itself to be the 5th-fastest team.<\/p>\n<p>Stroll recovered from an early spin to finish in 10th, a strong drive in uninspiring machinery.<\/p>\n<p>Zhou Guanyu deserved points for an extremely solid drive today, finishing 11th whilst maximising his Sauber machine.<\/p>\n<p>Magnussen&#8217;s P12 confirmed the forward step at Haas in race trim, with early damage compromising potential points for Nico Hulkenberg.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the biggest drama of the race was at VCARB, with Yuki Tsunoda unhappy at being given team orders to let Ricciardo overtake.<\/p>\n<p>After running comfortably ahead of his teammate for most of the race, a difference in strategy saw Tsunoda lose ground to the Australian.<\/p>\n<p>With a potential Red Bull seat available, it seems reasonable this teammate pairing will generate more talking points in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen took a commanding victory in Bahrain, with Carlos Sainz finishing first of the chasing in third. There were question marks in the build-up to the Bahrain GP, and Verstappen&#8217;s controlled victory answered many of them. Carlos Sainz managed an impressive third place for Ferrari, but the SF-24 is still a few steps behind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":18870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,542,343,68,2238,23,79],"class_list":["post-18869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-bahrain-gp","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-f1","tag-f1-2024","tag-formula-1","tag-max-verstappen"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}