Robert Shwartzman took reverse grid pole yesterday and never looked back. Despite a safety car for Theo Pourchaire stopping on track reducing his gap he was untouchable throughout the race to take a dominant victory by 5 seconds, his first victory since the Sprint Race in Spa and keeping himself in title contention.
Whilst it may have been easy for Robert, there was a lot going on behind, with many contenders falling by the wayside. Yuki Tsunoda got a good start and got up to second but was hit by Marcus Armstrong, giving the Carlin driver a puncture. Significantly in the championship, Callum Ilott made what could be a costly mistake, locking up at Turn 10 and ploughing into the side of Jehan Daruvala, putting the Carlin out, breaking the front wing of Ilott and resulting in a penalty as well.
It was Nikita Mazepin who in the end finished in second, keeping himself in title contention as well. Pedro Piquet held third for much of the race and looked on course for his maiden podium, but a mechanical issue right towards the end resulted in him missing out. It was the other Charouz of Louis Deletraz who finished in third place, having made a pitstop under the Safety Car, he had a tyre advantage which enabled him to work his way up to third. Marcus Armstrong finished in fourth ahead of Guanyu Zhou in fifth.
Christian Lundgaard overtook Mick Schumacher in the closing laps to finish sixth, Mick not taking advantage of Callum Ilott failing to score as much as he could’ve, with Felipe Drugovich rounding out the points.
Here is the result of the Sprint Race in Bahrain!
RaceWeek 