Sergio Perez (P2, 18 pts): 8.5/10
There's a common assumption that Sergio Perez is in last chance saloon this season, under orders from Red Bull high command to do better and cut out the mistakes and slumps of 2023. After Bahrain, the jury is still out on Perez' prospects. Just like last year, his qualifying pace was a slight Achilles' Heel leaving him starting the race in fifth. But once the lights went out he was soon pushing forward: picking off Sainz at the start, then Charles Leclerc on lap 7, and then replacing George Russell in second place at the first round of pit stops. That was pretty much it as far as Perez was concerned, and he ran in second place uninterrupted from lap 16 through to the chequered flag despite some genuine pressure from behind from Sainz. There was literally nothing more that Red Bull could have asked from Perez; and yet that slightly weak grid position, and the fact that he was over 20 seconds behind Verstappen by the finish, implies that little has changed for the Mexican over the winter. And that's a concern for fans of the Mexican.
Max Verstappen (Pole, P1, Fastest lap, 26 pts): 9.5/10
A massive victory for Max Verstappen was something only die hard Red Bull fans wanted to see at this very early stage in the season, as it seems to confirm the sport's worst fears: that this will be another season utterly dominated by the Dutch driver. Already there are suggestions that Verstappen could manage to pull off a 24-race clean sweep. It wasn't just that he took pole, fastest lap and the race win in Bahrain so much as the margin of that victory. Over 20 seconds clear of the next best car (that of his team mate Sergio Perez) suggests he is once again literally out of reach of the rest. Coming into the weekend, his subdued time in testing and a quiet start to practice had given us all brief hope that maybe Red Bull hadn't made the off-season progress which had been expected, but such thoughts were totally blown away by what ensued. So why not a perfect ten in our ratings for Verstappen this week? That's for giving us false hope with all that sandbagging in the build-up to the season opener!
