What the Bahrain GP battles taught F1 about the impact of its new era

OPINION: Formula 1’s long-awaited new car formula made its race debut in last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix. There were good signs it may achieve its key aims, but those came alongside issues causing for alarm for some of the championship’s big players.

Alex Kalinauckas Mar 23, 2022, 12:17 PM

Right now, Formula 1 is riding the crest of a wave. There are legions of new fans brought in by the success and profiles of new young drivers from across Europe. Netflix’s Drive to Survive is finally giving credence to the idea of the championship cracking America. The first Chinese driver has started an F1 race and scored a brilliant debut point. Across the globe, fans starved of in-person entertainment during the pandemic are buying tickets for returning races in huge numbers.

How great then for F1 and the engineers that created the new car formula designed to enhance the championship’s racing product to further please existing fans and bring in even more, that the fight for the win in last weekend’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix contained a thrilling phase of wheel-to-wheel fighting.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.