Johnny Herbert: 'It's been quite a few races since Leclerc could show Verstappen that he races hard too'

First impressions in the wake of the Bahrain season-opener? The race had its moments, especially between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, the old established order was shaken up and the safety car added spice at the end… again. It was great for Kevin Magnussen coming in so unexpectedly for Haas, and for Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou at Alfa Romeo. A lot of promise is what I took from Bahrain.

Ferrari capitalised on the potential it showed pre-season. On springs and dampers again now hydraulic actuation has been banned, the Ferrari seems to absorb bumps beautifully as teams grapple with the porpoising problem. Watching the car, especially from on-board, you could see it was delivering good feedback to the drivers. It responded to inputs and didn’t have the little flicks you saw from others on the entry to corners. Then throw in the job done by the drivers, especially Leclerc, and it was very positive. As we’ve seen before, give Charles the car and he can do the job.

There’s always pressure, because it’s Ferrari, but in Bahrain the question was always going to be how he dealt with Verstappen. During their three-lap battle Max was coming from so far back with a straight-line speed advantage extended by DRS, but Charles was very smart on the entry to Turn 1 and then used the momentum to take back the lead at Turn 4. The first time, he took the outside line and as he cleared the Red Bull made a little jink towards him. It was a clear message, ‘I’m having this’ and Max backed out. That’s good mind-games and the Charles I know. Remember when they had that coming together in Austria in 2019, when Verstappen forced him off the road? He answered back at Silverstone, but hasn’t had many opportunities since to show Max he can play hard, too. In Bahrain, bang, straight away he was there and able to outfox his rival.

“Lewis will have to be patient with Mercedes, as he was last year”

Given how far he was off in Bahrain, Hamilton will need to be patient with Mercedes but will handle the situation in his normal, methodical way. Remember he needed quite a bit of patience last year because the last upgrade for that car came at Silverstone and it took time to be tuned up. Then again, on the evidence of Bahrain, I’d say Mercedes are not a million miles away and form will definitely be track-dependent this year. Look at McLaren from testing in Barcelona to the drop-off in Bahrain. No one saw that swing coming, including probably the team itself. Within the walls of Brackley Mercedes will get the car into a better position. The question is, will it do so fast enough? And then will Red Bull and Ferrari improve at the same rate? The Merc does look harsher, slightly stiffer. Where the Ferrari really absorbs the porpoising, the Mercedes looks more alive and on edge, especially on the bumps. The W13 was suffering on straight-line speed, but also its traction and low-speed grip looked quite poor, especially when Hamilton came out of the pits on the hard tyre and could barely keep it on the track. When racing into Turn 1, Charles’ car was much more responsive whereas when Lewis was in a similar position he couldn’t capitalise at all. To me it’s a clear sign Mercedes has gone stiffer on set-up to counteract the porpoising.

I’m surprised to some degree how the teams have been caught out by this ‘bounce’ issue. It was always there when I raced sports cars and I had it at Lotus a couple of times, when the cars were also very stiff. The thing is the modern engineers can develop clever little trick systems, such as the dual axis steering (DAS) Mercedes had last year, but they aren’t so used to working with springs and dampers. And they can’t replicate the porpoising problem in the wind tunnel or on CFD.

On F1 hitting its brief to create closer racing, it did appear in Bahrain that the cars could run a little closer. I didn’t see anyone drive up a gearbox and follow closely through a medium-speed corner, but out of Turn 4 there wasn’t so much squirm from the car following behind. We’ll have to see at other tracks, but yes – on first impressions, it is a bit better.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the karting went OK at Whilton Mill. I didn’t break any ribs! I’m a bit bigger than I used to be, so the pace wasn’t where I want it. I’m giving away the 20kg Nigel Mansell used to hand to Alain Prost when they were at Ferrari – but Nigel dealt with it and I’m not! I was also running on harder tyres than others. I’m only out to have a bit of fun, but the competitive thing kicks in. For the better weather later in the season I do have a brand new set ready to go…