Ricciardo can challenge Vettel
Sebastian Vettel completely obliterated Mark Webber in 2013, but his new Aussie team-mate isn’t making life easy for the four-time world champion.
Daniel Ricciardo drove wheel-to-wheel with his Red Bull team-mate in Malaysia and did the same thing again in Bahrain, this time coming out on top. Not even a 10-place grid penalty could stop Ricciardo challenging for the podium after a sensational drive through the field, which even saw an unfamiliar sight, Vettel having to yield to his faster team-mate.
Ferrari aren’t happy. At all
It seems a long, long time ago that Ferrari were completely dominating F1, and now they’ve made it very clear that they’re not happy, with Stefano Domenicali recently “quitting” as Ferrari team principal after their terrible start to 2014.
The team from Maranello have started ranting on Twitter about the new Formula One, even going to great lengths to find any random person who doesn’t like 2014-style F1:
https://twitter.com/InsideFerrari/status/455754432626450432
Marussia and Caterham still need a miracle to score points
The first race in Australia was meant to see everyone break down, allowing the reliable Max Chilton to cruise to victory, but in reality only five drivers retired from car failures.
There have been far less retirements than expected in 2014 which means it still seems that only a one-lap reverse grid race at Monaco could help Marussia and Caterham score their first points in Formula One.
Mercedes are ridiculously fast
Red Bull were the surprise of Australia and Malaysia - having been seemingly close on pace to the dominant Mercedes cars - but Bahrain showed just how much quicker the Brackley based team are.
Mercedes turned the wick up in the final few laps of Bahrain and their advantage was a massive three seconds a lap on their rivals… and that was when they were scrapping for the lead with each other!
…but they let their drivers race
So while it looks like Mercedes are runaway favourites for the championship this year, the good news is that they’re allowed to race.
Bahrain showed Mercedes have the best car by a mile and both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg want to be the ones to take it to the 2014 world championship.
Expect an equally close fight in China this weekend.
Tom Bellingham is the founder of the popular and down-right brilliant F1 blog wtf1.co.uk. If you love F1 you should check it out.
