Heading into the Bahrain Grand Prix, all the indicators pointed to Red Bull starting the season off with a win.
The energy drink giants were the fastest team across all three days of testing and other than the reborn Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin, Red Bull were also fastest in free practice.
Qualifying then continued on the same path as Red Bull locked out the front row, with Max Verstappen taking pole position with his teammate Sergio Perez just behind him.
Verstappen never looked back after lights out in Bahrain and went on to take his first win of the season while Charles Leclerc’s disappointing retirement allowed Perez to cruise to P2.
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Mercedes’ George Russell finish in P7 and has boldly claimed that after seeing how Red Bull have started the season, the team should be able to win every race this season.
“Red Bull has got this championship sewn up, I don’t think anyone is going to be fighting with them this year. I expect they should win every single race this season. That is my bet,” said the Brit.
“With the performance they’ve got I don’t see anyone challenging them.
“Their pace seems weaker this weekend than it was in testing which was a bit strange. But, you know, they’ve got it easy at the moment, and they can do what they like.
“They might not get on pole all of the time, because we know that Ferrari are very competitive in qualifying. But when it comes to race pace, I think they’re in a very, very strong position.”
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Ferrari were expected to step up and challenge Red Bull more seriously this season but it appears that not much has changed from last year.
The team once again were haunted by reliability issues, with Leclerc being forced to retire from the race and the Scuderia also really struggled with tyre degradation compared to the rest of the grid.
With Mercedes and Ferrari looking some way off challenging Red Bull for race wins, the championship already looks like Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s to lose.