Bahrain Grand Prix: Ferrari are finally back - can Leclerc mount title challenge?

If the battle between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen is any measure of the season to come in Formula 1, it is going to be quite a year.

Mercedes' struggles with their car after the huge change of regulations for 2022 have taken Lewis Hamilton out of the title battle — for now, at least, and possibly for the year if his team cannot find some rather large solutions quickly.

But Leclerc and Verstappen staged a gripping contest in the Bahrain Grand Prix. They raced wheel to wheel for two laps, swapping the lead five times, before the Ferrari driver came out on top.

If their battle was the highlight of the race, it was not the most dramatic moment. That was saved for the final three laps, when both Red Bulls retired with the same problem — something to do with the fuel system, the team said — and lost second and fourth places.

Leclerc's consummate victory — a drive that had pace, control, maturity, coolness and aggression — has put him in a strong position but it means little at the start of F1's longest ever season other than one very important point: Ferrari are back with a bang.

It has been a long road back to this point for F1's most famous team. They were last absolutely competitive in 2017 and 2018, but let those titles slip through their fingers with a series of mistakes from the team and their then lead driver Sebastian Vettel.

The following year had its highlights — Leclerc scored more pole positions than anyone and won two races — but it was clouded by a controversy over their engine.

They lost performance over the final races after a rule clarification over usage of the hybrid system, and over the following winter it was revealed that they had come to a private settlement with governing body the FIA, which said it