Reigning three-time champion Max Verstappen is off to a flying start in 2024. The Red Bull superstar got away better than front-row neighbor Charles Leclerc, and the race felt effectively over about a lap later.
Verstappen led every lap as he cruised to victory with a winning margin of more than 22 seconds, an eternity in racing. Teammate Sergio Perez fought up the field from P5, passing Mercedes driver George Russell after the first round of pit stops to secure the P2 position in which he finished.
Leclerc fell out of the podium places to P4 as he battled his Ferrari's locking brakes.
He was overtaken on lap 11 by his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr., who finished three seconds behind Perez in P3. Ferrari was clearly the best of the non-Red Bull cars but will have work to do before they're challenging Red Bull on race day.
Elsewhere on the grid, Russell outperformed Mercedes teammate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Russell's P5 finish was four seconds clear of Hamilton's P7.
The two Mercedes were split by Lando Norris. He finished P6, two places ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri. The Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll nabbed the final three points by finishing P9 and P10 respectively.
There was no shortage of on-track drama outside the points. Things got tense late between RB teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo, when RB ordered Tsunoda to let Ricciardo pass. Tsunoda complained before relenting, but Ricciardo was unable to progress further. Tsunoda voiced his frustrations on the radio following the race, and the two cars nearly collided on the cooldown lap when Tsunoda went deep into turn 8.
Alpine's performance issues persisted on race day. The two cars moved from P20 and P19 to P18 and P17, ahead only of Sauber's Valtteri Bottas and Williams' Logan Sargent.
Bottas was forced to endure a 52-second pit stop after an issue with his left front wheel nut. Sargent was delayed on lap 10 by overheating and steering wheel issues that forced him to go deep into turn 4, where he stopped momentarily before pitting.
My driver of the day was Aston Martin's Lance Stroll. He got a decent launch from P12 but was spun around at turn one by Nico Hulkenberg. Stroll fell to an early P20 but fought through the field to capture P10 and the race's final point.
This weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will see Verstappen defend the 26-point title lead he earned by winning and securing the race's fastest lap. Last weekend was all too reminiscent of Verstappen's dominant 2023 campaign, during which he won 21 of the year's 24 races. It'll remain to be seen if anyone can stop Verstappen from continuing his streak of untouchable performances.
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