In Bahrainit was Max Verstappen who had taken the black and white checkered flag, this time it was his teammate who reversed the pole for his fifth victory F1 career.
But Verstappen’s ride was the standout, having moved up from 15the on the grid at the start drive shaft failure in qualifying to land an almost improbable victory.
On points, Verstappen threatened to overtake his teammate as he moved into second place midway through the race, the most grateful recipient of a safety car deployed to remove the Lance Stroll stricken Aston Martin.
But even for the two-time champion it proved one question too far, his second-place finish a result he would undoubtedly have achieved had he gone off to watch the second half of qualifying play out on Saturday.
After his victory from pole, Perez said: “It turned out to be more difficult than expected. That safety car tried to take the win away from us, but not this time. The team has done a fantastic job. We were the fastest car today.”
Despite all of Verstappen’s dominance over the past year, the Dutchman repeatedly warned his team that something was wrong with his car, believing it was a similar driveshaft problem that had limited action on Saturday’s track. He was only reassured with the words: “we are hay at the moment, Max”.
At the moment, reliability issues seem to be the only thing likely to derail Verstappen and Red Bull, which, this early in the season, should make for a worrying look at Formula 1 bosses.
The rules they worked so hard to revise for early 2022 certainly helped improve overtaking within the pack, unfortunately not at the front of the race.
That said, Fernando Alonso briefly threatened a surprise when he risked the jump on Perez, but was handed a five-second penalty for a wrong starting position. In reality it had little impact on his race as Perez still had the superior pace to retake the lead even before stopping for his penalty.
In a one-stop race, the pit stops were crucial, meaning the arrival of the safety car for Verstappen, Alonso and others, among others. Lewis Hamiltonwho had previously scolded his team for putting him on the hard tires at the start.
The safety car came about on lap 18 when Stroll was ordered to “stop on track” immediately. At that point Hamilton was almost 38 seconds off the pace, now he was sixth and back in contention after a difficult weekend.
Verstappen had endured a rocky start from 15e struggling to get through until DRS was engaged and then picking out the cars in front of him with such ease that it seemed like little more than a concession from the cars in front of him.
By the time of the safety car he was in fourth place and from then on it became a matter of numbers in terms of time to Perez – 5.7 seconds – and positions.
But despite the pursuer’s best efforts, Perez held off Verstappen for a maiden win of 2023, despite a possible problem with his brake pedal with 10 laps to go.
After his climb to second place, Verstappen said: “We got into a good rhythm and of course were very happy to be on the podium.”
In the battle for the final podium spot, it always looked like Alonso’s – what would have been the 100th podium of his career – to continue Aston Martin’s impressive start to the season. But it was ruled that he had not correctly served his five-second penalty and received a 10-second penalty after the finish.
That increased George Russellwho seemed more comfortable in the W14 this season, to third after previously fending off Hamilton’s challenge following a somewhat tantalizing exchange with his team over race radio about his and his more experienced team-mate’s track positions.
The Mercedes were followed by the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc sixth and seventh respectively with both Alpines also in the points.