The 2023 Formula 1 (F1) season kicked off with a flying start in the desert nation of Bahrain, with both highs and lows. We started with qualifying as Red Bull locked out the first row and once again Verstappen claimed pole position. Perez sat just behind, missing out of pole by 0.15 seconds. The second row was a Ferrari lockout, with Charles Leclerec beating out Carlos Sainz, also by 0.15 seconds. Alonso in his brand new Aston Martin took the fifth place spot on the grid, an incredible effort by the Spaniard and giving the British team hope for this season after their abysmal 2022 campaign. The next two spots are taken up by the black arrows of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, Russell beating Hamilton for the sixth spot by only four hundredths of a second—not a good show from the German giants, as they are showing similar signs of mediocracy. Lance Stroll formed an Aston Martin/Mercedes sandwich, qualifying eighth even with two metal screws in both his hands. Only three weeks before the race Stroll was in a bike accident and broke both of his hands. There were a lot of questions on whether or not he would be fit for the race, but it seems like the qualifying time speaks for itself. Esteban Ocon qualified 10th for Alpine, while his teammate Pierre Gasly qualified dead last. Nico Hulkenburg had a flying start for Haas, making it into Q3 but unfortunately wasn’t able to set a time. His teammate, Kevin Magnussen wasn’t able to even make it into Q2, qualifying 17th. Lando Norris qualified next, claiming P11 for McLaren, missing out on Q3 by 0.6 seconds. His rookie teammate, Oscar Piastri, only managed to qualify P18; overall, a very poor showing from the historic British team. The next two positions were occupied by the Alfa Romeos of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, with Bottas beating out his young teammate by 0.03 seconds. A good showing for Alfa but a slight drop from last year. Yuki Tsunoda qualified P14 while his rookie teammate Nyck De Vries qualified P19, only barely beating Pierre Gasly out for second to last. Alpha Tauri have seem to have taken a couple steps back in the past few years and are not seeming to reverse this downward trend. The two Williams followed next, with Alex Albon making it to Q2, beating out his rookie teammate Logan Sargeant by more than 0.2 seconds. 

The race started off with a bang with Verstappen and Perez speeding away into the distance. The podium hopes of Aston Martin seemed to disappoint as Lance Stroll knocked into his teammate Fernando Alonso, allowing both Mercedes to slip by into fifth and sixth. The two Williams drivers capitalized on the mistakes of others and jumped up three places; on the other end of the spectrum both Zhou Guanyu and Nico Hulkenberg had terrible starts, dropping four places each after Ocon made contact with Nico Hulkenberg. Speaking of the Frenchman, Ocon was given a five-second penalty for lining up on the grid incorrectly, and when serving that penalty, was given another 10-second penalty after the mechanics started to work on his car before the five seconds were up. Pierre Gasly made a questionable decision to pit on lap ten, prompting Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris to follow suit in order to defend from the undercut, which failed as Gasly came out ahead of the McLaren driver. Alonso soon came into range of the Mercedes of Russell on lap 11, and made a lunge into turn one, taking the place down the inside of turn four with DRS soon after. The battle continued into turn five until Russell conceded the position. Hamilton was the first one to pit out of the top five, putting on the hard tyres, which prompted the double stack from Ferrari. Alonso then pitted, prompting Russell to do the same; however, Russell’s stop was a bit slow and Alonso stayed ahead. Bottas was now in sixth position, but Alonso made light work of him, overtaking him in turn four. A lap later Russell made the same move. Meanwhile in the lead, Verstappen pitted for softs, but had gained such a gap that he remained in the lead. McLaren had a disastrous start, with Oscar Piastri retiring 13 laps after his debut. His McLaren teammate wasn’t having the best of starts either, with copious amounts of mechanical issues, but still managed to overtake Ocon for P18. Perez came out behind Leclerc and stalked the Monegasque for two laps before overtaking him on lap 26. Sainz was far behind them in P4, with Hamilton closing the gap. Misfortune followed Ocon, who received another time penalty, this time for 10 seconds, for speeding in the pit lane, bringing his total penalty time up to 25 seconds. Hamilton, Russell and Stroll all pitted for hard on lap 31 with Hamilton cruising into the lead; however, Russell struggled warming his tires up and Stroll was able to get by him. Sainz and Leclerc both pitted with Alonso deciding to stay out. By lap 37 the speeding Alonso caught up to Hamilton and tried to make a move on him into turn four, which Hamilton defended, but going into the hairpin in turn 10, the hardest corner of the circuit, Alonso made a brilliant move down inside of the eight-time world champion and got past him. Meanwhile, the prancing ponies picked up where they left off, with Leclerc retiring on lap 41, bringing out a virtual safety car; however, Ferrari’s struggles did not stop there. In the next couple of laps Alonso caught up to the struggling Carlos Sainz and dispatched him in the exit of turn 11. The race finished seven laps later. The final order goes: Verstappen, who led every lap of the race; followed by his teammate Perez; Alonso grabbed the last podium spot; Sainz finished fourth; followed by the Mercedes of Hamilton. Stroll had a miraculous drive and finished sixth, splitting the two Mercedes; Russell came in seventh, followed by Bottos, Gasly and Albon who managed to squeak into the top 10. Yuki Tsunoda finished 11th followed by Sargeant who had an impressive first drive. Magnussen managed to beat out his teammate, finishing 13th; De Vries followed with Hulkenberg in 15th. Zhou Guanyu had a poor race but still managed to beat Norris. Ocon, Leclerc and Piastri all did not finish.