The Athletic

The race is on, and Ferrari ended a 45 race losing streak with a 1-2 for Charles Leclair

and Carlos Seitz in the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

But pre-season favourites Red Bull ended up empty-handed after both cars stopped,

while Mercedes was on a damage limitation mission,

and has produced the feel-good story of the weekend with Kevin Magnuson's fifth place.

I'm Ed Straw, and joining me to give you the inside line on a remarkable weekend,

are Scott Mitchell and Mark Hughes.

Well, Mark, hello, everything looked well set up heading into the first race of the season.

But did the Byron Grand Prix actually surpass your expectations?

In some ways it did because the nagging doubt I had in my head

was that we had only glimpsed a little bit of the Red Bulls, the updated Red Bulls real performance.

And I had a little nagging doubt that it was just going to suddenly turn up the wick and qualifying and put two cars on the front row and disappear up the road.

And then the Ferrari would be. the wick and qualifying and put two cars on the front row and disappear up the road.

But the Ferrari would be left looking, you know, just like an okay car. But it's actually not that.

It's genuine, they were genuinely very, very closely matched.

So we have two top teams, potentially going out at Hammer and Tong.

And well, it certainly did this weekend and potentially going on a hammer and tong through

the year. And hopefully with a third one joining in before too long.

Yep. It's certainly started very promisingly. Now, Scott, these new rules

are meant to be a shot in the arm for F1, but how important was it that Ferrari opened this new

era with a 1-2, given that for so many around the world, this is the Formula 1-2?

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