Verstappen takes the first win of the season, Alonso records his 99th podium, Albon picks up Williams’ first points in Bahrain since 2017 and Gasly becomes the first driver to score from 20th on the grid at the circuit. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix!
Verstappen wins the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix
Max Verstappen took victory at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, winning for the 36th time in Formula 1. This marked the first time Verstappen has won the first Grand Prix of the season, as well as the first time Red Bull have won at the season-opening race since 2011.
Verstappen’s victory makes him only the 14th driver to have won in eight different Formula 1 seasons. Having won at least one race in every year since 2016, Verstappen is only the sixth driver to have won in eight consecutive seasons.
Having never previously won the Bahrain Grand Prix, Bahrain International Circuit became the 22nd different track at which Verstappen has recorded a victory. He equalled Alain Prost for third in the all-time list of most circuits at which a driver has won.
Verstappen’s win marked Red Bull’s first victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix since 2013. With Sergio Perez finishing second, Red Bull recorded their first ever 1-2 finish in Bahrain. In total, this was their 23rd 1-2 finish in Formula 1.
This is only the second time, after the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, that both Red Bull drivers have finished on the podium in a race at Bahrain International Circuit.
Perez recorded his 27th podium finish at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, equalling Bruce McLaren and Ralf Schumacher for 37th in the all-time list.
Red Bull become only the sixth team to have won in 14 or more Formula 1 seasons. Their 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix victory sees them equal Brabham for fifth in the list of most seasons in which a team has won.
The 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix is the 20th consecutive race at which Verstappen has scored points. It’s only the ninth time in Formula 1 that a driver has scored at 20 consecutive races. Verstappen is one race away from equalling his personal best consecutive scoring streak.
Having only ever won with Red Bull, Verstappen recorded his 36th win with the team. That saw him move ahead of Ayrton Senna in the list of drivers who’ve won the most races with a single team. Senna won 35 races with McLaren during his career. Verstappen now sits fourth on this particular list.
This was the 16th time that Verstappen took victory in car number 1. That saw him equal Ayrton Senna for third on the all-time list of most victories in car number 1.
Red Bull’s victory makes this the first time that four consecutive races at Bahrain International Circuit have been won by four different teams. Four different drivers have also won the last four races at the track. The latter has happened once previously, between 2008 and 2012.
Alonso shines on Aston Martin debut
On his Aston Martin debut, Fernando Alonso finished in third place. Alonso became only the fifth driver in Formula 1 history to finish on the podium with five different constructors. Only Stirling Moss and John Surtees have finished on the podium with more constructors than Alonso.
The 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix marked Fernando Alonso’s 99th podium finish – putting him one short of being only the sixth driver to record 100 podium finishes in Formula 1. This was Alonso’s first podium finish since the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix.
This was Alonso’s first podium finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix since winning the 2010 race with Ferrari.
Finishing on the podium at the age of 41 years, 7 months and 5 days, Alonso became the oldest Formula 1 podium finisher since Michael Schumacher at the 2012 European Grand Prix. Since 1960 only six drivers have finished on the podium at an older age than Alonso at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix: Maurice Trintignant, John Love, Jack Brabham, Mario Andretti, Jacques Laffite and Michael Schumacher.
Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll finished the race in sixth place. The last time Stroll finished above sixth place was when he took a podium finish at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, held at Bahrain International Circuit. He has taken two other sixth place finishes since then.
The 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix is the first time that the Silverstone team has finished with both cars in the top six since the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, when both Racing Point drivers finished on the podium.
Alonso’s podium, along with Stroll’s points for sixth place, put Aston Martin second in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s only the fourth time that the team has been in the top two in the standings since joining Formula 1 as Jordan in 1991. The other times it has happened were at the 1999 Australian and Brazilian Grands Prix (under their Jordan guise) and at the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix (as Force India).
The 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix points scorers
For the first time in the V6 hybrid era, neither Mercedes driver finished on the podium at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
With fifth place, Lewis Hamilton made 2023 the 17th consecutive season in which he has scored a point. He equalled Jenson Button as the driver to have scored in the most consecutive F1 seasons.
Reaching the chequered flag for the 16th time, Hamilton became the driver to have finished the most races at Bahrain International Circuit, moving ahead of Kimi Raikkonen at the top of the leaderboard. Fernando Alonso equalled Raikkonen’s tally of finishes at the track.
Hamilton’s fifth place marked the first time since 2013, when he also finished fifth, that he failed to finish on the podium at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
George Russell’s seventh place finish marked the fourth time in the last five races at Bahrain International Circuit in which the driver starting sixth has finished in seventh place.
Finishing in eighth place at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas became the third driver to have scored in Bahrain on 11 occasions, as well as the fourth driver to record 11 top ten finishes at the track.
Bottas recorded his best Sunday result since finishing seventh at the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix.
Bottas gained four positions on his way to eighth place – the most positions he has ever gained from where he has started in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Having started last on the grid, Pierre Gasly gained 11 positions over the course of the race to finish in ninth place. It’s the most positions that the Frenchman has ever gained in a Grand Prix.
This was the first time Gasly picked up points since the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix and the first time he scored points in Bahrain since the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Scoring from 20th, Gasly is the first driver to ever score having started 20th on the grid at Bahrain International Circuit. His ninth place also marks the best result from the grid slot in Bahrain’s history. Rubens Barrichello finished ninth having started 20th in the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix, before the finishing position provided any points.
Alex Albon finished in tenth place, recording his first point since the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix.
Albon’s tenth place marked the first time that Williams scored at the Bahrain Grand Prix since 2017, when Felipe Massa finished in sixth place.
With Lance Stroll finishing sixth and Alex Albon tenth, the duo are now tied on 202 career points. It leaves them both tied with Daniil Kvyat – who also scored 202 career points – for fifth in the all-time list of most points without a victory.
The other finishers in the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix
With Logan Sargeant finishing 12th, the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix was the first race at Bahrain International Circuit at which both Williams drivers finished in the top 12 since 2016.
Both Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda lost their 100% points-scoring appearance rates in Bahrain. It leaves Paul di Resta and Stoffel Vandoorne as the only drivers to have scored on every appearance at the track.
With neither Tsunoda nor Nyck de Vries scoring points, this was the first time since the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix that the Red Bull junior team failed to score at Bahrain International Circuit.
Zhou finished only 16th but recorded the fastest lap of the race. It was the second time in his career that Zhou has set the fastest lap. He has not benefited on either occasion points-wise, having also finished 16th when he last set the fastest lap at the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix.
Lando Norris finished the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix in 17th place, marking the first time he has failed to score in a race he has finished since the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix. This was Norris’ worst result from any race he has finished in his F1 career.
The retirees at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix
Oscar Piastri became the first retirement of the 2023 Formula 1 season, retiring on Lap 14 of the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix with an electronics failure. This is the first time since 2019 that a McLaren driver has been the first retirement of the season.
Piastri became the first driver to retire having started 17th on the grid at the Bahrain Grand Prix since Takuma Sato in 2007.
Last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix winner, Charles Leclerc, was the second retirement from the race. This was Leclerc’s first retirement since the 2022 French Grand Prix, ending a streak of ten consecutive points finishes.
This was Leclerc’s second retirement at Bahrain International Circuit. His only other retirement at the circuit came in the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
Esteban Ocon was the third and final retirement from the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix. This was the first time in his career that Ocon failed to reach the chequered flag at the opening race of the year, as well as his first ever retirement at Bahrain International Circuit.
