Charles Leclerc wins season-opening grand prix as both Red Bulls fail to finish

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc won Formula One’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix after world champion Max Verstappen retired with just three laps remaining and Lewis Hamilton landed a surprise podium.

Verstappen hit technical trouble in the closing moments to promote Carlos Sainz to second as Ferrari completed a one-two finish.

Hamilton was elevated to third after Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez spun out with an engine failure on the penultimate lap to complete a dramatic and miserable evening for Red Bull. George Russell finished fourth.

What a race for @ScuderiaFerrari What a win for @Charles_Leclerc #BahrainGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/UVZYalgOQy

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 20, 2022

Ninety-eight days after last season’s hotly-disputed finale in Abu Dhabi where Hamilton was denied an eighth world championship, Formula One fired up for a new campaign in Bahrain.

Hamilton had largely been forced to play a supporting role with Mercedes struggling to get on top of the sport’s biggest technical overhaul of a generation.

Taking his place at the front of the field was Leclerc, the 24-year-old Monegasque who Ferrari hope can end a drivers’ championship drought which stretches back to 2007.

Leclerc blasted away from his marks to keep Verstappen at bay into the opening corner, with Hamilton moving up one spot from fifth as he passed Perez through the second corner. Hamilton was then on to the back of Sainz’s Ferrari before the true pace of his Mercedes machine was exposed.

Hamilton fell off Sainz’s Ferrari gearbox and into the clutches off Perez, with the Red Bull driver assuming fourth on lap 10.

Hamilton pulled in for fresh rubber two laps later, taking on the hardest tyres. The majority of the field switch from soft to mediums.

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