Will his first victory in last season, change the fortunes for Sergio Perez, ex-Force India star?

By Malhaar Khaladkar

Sergio Perez recorded a career first victory- in what could be his last ever season in Formula 1- amidst a nightmare race for Mercedes as Renault’s Esteban Ocon achieved his first podium of the career in P2 and Lance Stroll took P3 for the second time in 2020.

London, 7 Dec 2020: Sergio Perez took advantage of Mercedes’ mishaps to win the Sakhir Grand Prix, after being last on lap 1, ahead of Esteban Ocon and teammate Lance Stroll.

For once all the three on the podium, are those who have done service to the Indian outfit, Sahara Force India, before the team went into `Administration’ and later, became BWT Racing Point midway through 2018 season in late July. Till then Mercedes were in contract to supply engines and were in the 10-year relationship that has grown to allow Mercedes’ junior driver Esteban Ocon to take a driver seat as an understudy to Perez, who has been with Force India for five years till then.

The double podium helping Racing Point, formerly Force India, leap to P3 in the Constructor’s Championship. McLaren’s Carlos Sainz finished in P4 and teammate Lando Norris in P10, as they lost out P3 to their pink rivals in the constructor’s championship. Daniel Ricciardo finished P5 in the other Renault, ahead of the sole Red Bull of Alex Albon. Daniil Kvyat finished a respectable P7 in his AlphaTauri ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in P8 as he had a forgettable race after a shambolic 27s pitstop. Lewis Hamilton tested positive for Covid-19, thus, he was replaced by Williams’ George Russell for the weekend- who is also part of the Mercedes driver program. Russell impressed in qualifying as he secured P2 and led 2/3^rd of the race before a pitstop in which he was fitted with wrong tyres and a puncture cost him a certain debut win. Ultimately, he finished in P9.

Pierre Gasly just missed out on points, finishing in P11 ahead of the outgoing Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel. Alfa Romeo duo of Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen finished in P13 and P14 respectively. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen finished in P15 as his new teammate, Pietro Fittipaldi finished in P17- subbing in for the injured Romain Grosjean. Williams’ new driver Jack Aitken finished in P16 as his teammate Nicholas Latifi DNF’d. Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc DNF’d on lap 1 after a kerfuffle in turn 4.

At the start, new boy Russell leapt ahead of Bottas and took the lead. Meanwhile, behind Leclerc dive bombed Verstappen but misjudged, locked up and made contact with Perez. The Ferrari was damaged and retired immediately while Perez spun, pitted and fell to the back of the grid. Meanwhile, Verstappen tried to avoid the spinning Perez but to no avail ran out of space as his car went into the barrier. Safety car was deployed.

At the safety car restart on lap 8, Russell bolted away putting distance between himself and Bottas. Perez was at the back of the grid but by lap 15 he had made his way up to P11. Russell ahead had the race in control as he maintained a 2sec gap over Bottas.

Kvyat was the first one to pull the trigger and pitted for hard tyres on lap 27 in an attempt to undercut Ricciardo, which was successful. McLaren’s Sainz pitted on lap 28 to protect from the Russian’s undercut while Ricciardo pitted on lap 29, losing a place to Kvyat. By halfway point, lap 44, Perez was once again running in P3 while the two Mercedes out front were yet to pit.

As Russell was leading, he pitted first for hard tyres on lap 45. 4 laps later Bottas pit, slotting into P2 now the gap between him and Russell hovering around 5 sec. On lap 62, a second safety car was called out as Aitken went off in the final corner and swiped his front wing, which had to be cleared off the track.

Mercedes with their advantage, pitted and double stacked the two cars. As Russell went off and Bottas came in, there was confusion in the Mercedes pit box and seemingly after 27s Bottas was sent out on the same set of tyres. Meanwhile, Russell had to pit again as he was fitted with one of Bottas’ tyre. This meant that Bottas dropped to P5 and Russell to P6, promoting Perez in the lead.

As the safety car pulled in, Russell used his pace and tyre advantage to get past Bottas, Stroll and Ocon. It looked like the victory was still on the cards for him. But it was not to be as he was informed, he had a slow puncture and therefore, had to pit and fell to P15.

Ultimately, Perez cruised to victory as the only consolation for Russell was that he got his first Formula 1 career points. It was an impressive display by the young Englishman who has been touted as the successor to statistically greatest driver Hamilton at Mercedes in the future. Perez has time and again shown why he deserves a seat in F1, with one such display again on Sunday. Only time will tell if he can make it to the grid for 2021.

Mercedes maintained their dominance on such a short track- only 2.2miles- by locking out the front row and having the pace to win. Their pit stop mistake and an unfortunate puncture cost them the win. Russell more than stepped to the challenge and undoubtedly beat Bottas when it mattered, showing why he deserves to be in the Mercedes seat. Hamilton is on the path to recovery from Covid, but if he is not available for the Abu Dhabi GP, Russell will step in and have another opportunity to fight at the front.

Red Bull had a bad weekend as Verstappen crashed out of the race and Albon could not capitalise on the misfortunes of the Mercedes. They have another headache of deciding the fate of the second Red Bull seat. Albon did achieve a podium in last week’s Bahrain GP, but Perez pulled a win and capitalised on other people’s mistake when it mattered. Surely a headache for Christian Horner and Helmut Marko eh?

Racing Point showed great pace over the weekend and crucially they were the fastest in the speed traps. The straight-line speed enabling the drivers to overtake and achieve a double podium finish, and potentially P3 in the constructor’s championship. Renault and Ocon capitalised on the mistakes of front runners too. Their car worked well in low drag set up. Even though they struggled in qualifying, their straight-line speed helped them to stay ahead of their orange rivals McLaren and Ocon to achieve a podium. McLaren performed poorly compared to Racing Point and Renault. With a P4 and P10 they slipped back to 4^th in the constructor’s championship, 10-points behind Racing Point and 12-points ahead of Renault.

AlphaTauri did not have the race pace to challenge for higher points at the Sakhir GP as Gasly finished out of points and Kvyat managed a P7. Ferrari had a pointless race weekend as Leclerc crashed out and Vettel finished out of the points. This track layout yet again exposing their power disadvantage. It was the same with Ferrari-customer cars of Alfa Romeo and Haas as they too finished outside the points. Haas also announced that 2020 F2 Champion Mick Schumacher and F2 driver Nikita Mazepin will drive for them in 2021. Williams had the pace to challenge the likes of Haas especially in the hands of Nicholas Latifi. But to no avail he DNF’d and Aitken’s incident meant that he finished second to last.

Saturday Qualifying results were: