Cassidy Retirement Allows Victory for Hamilton
Qualifying:
* demoted five places for changing engine/gearbox
Report:
One thing that can be said about the second Bahrain Grand Prix of 2017 is that drivers have calmed down and made less mistakes in total. However, just because someone doesn’t make mistakes, they still can provide for an entertaining sports showcase. This sure was the case in this race, as it had a good number of shocking twists and amazing moves, providing an interesting result.
Lewis Hamilton had scored his first pole of the 2018 season, using the advantage that was provided to him as a consequence of not having a large amount of success ballast with him in qualifying. At the start, however, the Brit lost out, as Dave Cassidy was able to get the better of the Caterham driver, taking the lead and building on that in the following laps.
As Jules Bianchi and Sebastian Vettel had to work their way up the order after struggling at the start, other teams were trying their best as well. DGN managed to help Miccoli to another fourth place: Sauber were able to pass Haas in the WCC standings, despite another good outing by Stoffel Vandoorne. Ferrari overcame technical issues to get both cars in the points for the first time since the season opener.
Out front, a thrilling battle between Dave Cassidy and Lewis Hamilton found a tragic end: the Precision-Mercedes had an extremely rare technical problem. Dave Cassidy had to park the #62 Precision, because his suspension had picked up race-ending damage. Lewis Hamilton took the lead and went on to smoothly control the race to score his first victory since returning to F1.
Race:
Fastest Lap:
Dave Cassidy – 1:24.363
Infinite Improbability Drive Of The Race:
Nico Hülkenberg – Got Sauber a number of important points.
Reject Of The Race:
Valtteri Bottas – The Finn made a crucial mistake and lost a lot of points.