Mercedes Really Enjoyed The Dramatic End To The Bahrain Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton secured a surprise top three finish at the opening race of the Grand Prix season, thanks to Red Bull's problems, and Mercedes were loving it.

Going into the first weekend of the Formula One season, Mercedes are almost always favourites for both the drivers and constructors championships, but not this year.

With 11 laps to go however, Pierre Gasly had issues and had to go off on the side of the course, leading to the safety car coming out and bunching the pack back together, in scenes reminiscent to the end of last season.

However, Verstappen had been complaining about an issue with his car and when the safety car came in, the world champion's problems only got worse.

With just two laps to go his teammate, Perez, started having similar issues and right at the start of the final lap they caught up with him, causing him to spin and earning Hamilton an unexpected podium, and it's fair to say his team were loving it!

Whilst we can only say that Mercedes were happy that their team secured a podium place they never would have imagined getting, cynics might suggest there was more to it.

After the race, a very humble Hamilton congratulated Leclerc and Sainz for Ferrari's first 1-2 finish since 2019, and said he was grateful for the points, "Firstly, a big, big congratulations to Ferrari, so happy to see them do well again, that's such a historic, epic team," the seven times drivers' world champion said.

"It's great to see Carlos and Charles up there as well, so congratulations to them.

"It was such a difficult race, we struggled throughout practice. This is really the best result we could have gotten.

"Of course, it's unfortunate for the other two drivers but we did the best we could and I'm grateful for these points."

Hamilton, Russell, Wolff and the whole team will be hoping they don't need to rely on others' bad luck next week in the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, but it's likely that improvements will take some time.