It was round 3 today for Formula One and 2017 championship at Bahrain. It was an exciting race and the winner was Ferrari with driver Sebastian Vettel. Ferrari started the race from third position but after some exciting events during the race, it managed to win. Let's have a closer look at what happened today.
Ferrari had both luck and a nice strategy to win today's 3rd round of Formula One for 2017
At Formula One some basic rules are important. These rules are speed, reliability, a strategy plan well executed, patience and sometimes luck. Ferrari had all of them today.
It was during lap 13 when Ferrari decided to enter its driver Sebastian Vettel into the pits to change tires. One lap after there was a collision between two cars, which had, as a result, the entrance of safety car into the race. This was a great timing moment for Ferrari, as others cars rushed into the pits to change tires and gave a competitive advantage to Ferrari. It was luck or a timing of strategy? Maybe it was both.
Ferrari took advantage of 5 seconds penalty given to Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton to win the race
A very important highlight of the race today was during lap 14, when Mercedes with its driver Lewis Hamilton entered the pits but delayed on purpose another driver, Daniel Ricciardo with Red Bull.
The judges of the race decided that Hamilton did the delay on purpose, not by accident and imposed a 5 seconds penalty to him, to be executed during next pits stop. This proved to be a vital point as Ferrari managed to control the race without any significant threat or pressure from Mercedes till the end. Valtteri Bottas driving for Mercedes did not manage to win this race, although he started from the first position, the first pole position in his career as a Formula One driver.
The top 5 positions for today's race were the following. The winner was Ferrari with driver Sebastian Vettel, second place was for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, third place for Mercedes and Valtterri Bottas, the fourth position was for Ferrari and Kimmi Raikkonen, the fifth position was for Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo. Now Vettel is in lead of the drivers’ championship with 68 points, seven points ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Ferrari seems so far to be very competitive and this could be the result of watching an exciting Formula One Championship this year. Although we are the very beginning of Formula One championship this year, some indications show that Mercedes will have to try hard to win Ferrari.