Formula 1: With Charles Leclerc on pole, how will Ferrari approach Bahrain?

Charles Leclerc is set to start the Bahrain Grand Prix from the pole position. How will Scuderia Ferrari approach the second race of the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Toward the end of the 2019 Formula 1 season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, which was Charles Leclerc’s first race driving for Scuderia Ferrari since being confirmed as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement toward the end of last summer, Ferrari ordered Leclerc not to pass teammate Sebastian Vettel and to instead fall further behind him.

Vettel, who was known to receive the benefit of team orders on several occasions during his time as Raikkonen’s teammate at the Scuderia from the 2015 season through the 2018 season, was running in fourth place at the time, and Leclerc was tracking him down from fifth.

Leclerc’s lap times around the 16-turn, 3.296-mile (5.304-kilometer) Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit road course in Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia were consistently around one second faster than Vettel’s, so he clearly had what it take to get around him and score 12 points as opposed to 10 to culminate what had been a disappointing race weekend for the Italian team.

More from Formula One

• Formula 1: Top Red Bull threat identified for 2024
• Formula 1: Why the Max Verstappen retirement obsession?
• Formula 1: Williams ‘mistake’ hints Logan Sargeant’s future
• Formula 1 awaiting key confirmation for 2024 season
• Formula 1: The ‘championship’ Max Verstappen only leads by 3 points

Additionally, despite the fact that the driver who was running in sixth place at the time, Rich Energy Haas’ Kevin Magnussen, was nowhere near Leclerc, Ferrari did not even let Leclerc pit for new tires to try to gain the bonus point for recording the race’s fastest lap time.

While they first attempted to justify this move, they later admitted that it was a poor decision, which was obvious from the start considering the risks were minimal while the gain of one point could prove to be significant in both the driver and constructor championships, especially since Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas ended up scoring that bonus point.

With that weekend in the books, Vettel sits in fourth place in the driver standings with 12 points, trailing points leader Bottas by 14 points, and Leclerc sits in fifth with 10 points, trailing Bottas by 16 points.

Now Leclerc has earned the first pole position of his Formula 1 career, and he is set to start the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is only the second of 21 races on this year’s schedule, in first place with Vettel set to start alongside him on the front row in second place.

How will Ferrari approach this situation?

Simple; by letting the drivers race. It is early enough in the season that neither one of the team’s two drivers has established himself as their top driver, and before the season began, Ferrari stated that their drivers would be free to race one another.

Vettel himself has stated that the team order issued to Leclerc in the Australian Grand Prix was not a hard team order, so it isn’t like Ferrari are going out of their way to help Vettel like Mercedes did to help Lewis Hamilton win last year’s Russian Grand Prix over Bottas, although letting Leclerc pass the 31-year-old German still may have been a better option altogether with all things considered.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto also specifically stated that Leclerc and Vettel will be free to race in the Bahrain Grand Prix, and he made these remarks even before Leclerc took the pole position for the race. Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to GP Fans.

"“Charles is allowed to go as fast as he can. He’s allowed to go for pole, he’s allowed to stay ahead. We are not stopping him doing that. I think it is important that our two drivers are not fighting and taking any risks battling together. But no doubt, if on the first lap Charles is ahead he will stay. If at the end of the race he is ahead he will stay ahead.”"

How will the Bahrain Grand Prix turn out for Ferrari and their two drivers? Tune in to ESPN2 later this morning at 11:00 a.m. ET for the live broadcast of the second race of the 2019 Formula 1 season from Bahrain International Circuit to find out.