Bahrain and Saudi Arabia put Ferrari at the top of the Formula 1 table

After two Grand Prix, those held at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia, at the Jeddah International Street Circuit, the first impressions are that the fight for the moment will be between the Red Bull and Ferrari teams.

Incomprehensibly Mercedes and in particular Lewis Hamilton are having very discreet results to the point that the British driver and seven times world champion did not qualify for Q2 in Saudi Arabia. He started 16th.

In qualifying it looked like Max Verstappen was competing with Leclerc and Carlos Sainz for pole, but Mexican driver Checo Perez put in an almost perfect qualifying lap to take pole at the Jeddah circuit.

Then in the race he was unlucky and the intervention of a safety car left him relegated to fourth place when everything indicated that he could climb to the top of the podium.

The winner in Saudi Arabia was decided in a head-to-head battle between Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc and reigning champion Max Verstappen. And here once again the orange driver's experience won out. Third was Sainz

Hamilton's Mercedes team-mate this year, Russell, was fifth and the sixth place that seemed destined for Fernando Alonso went to team-mate Esteban Ocon.

The Spanish world champion's car ran out of power and had to retire, as did Ricciardo and Bottas. Latifi and Albon also failed to finish, both due to accidents.

On Saturday in qualifying Mick Schumacher had a very violent accident which caused the car to literally break in two pieces. Thankfully, the young driver did not sustain any major injuries.

Hamilton, who had made a great comeback, was also affected by the safety car and finished tenth.

The saddest thing was Alonso's engine failure. It looks like the Alpines are really going to put up a fight on the circuit this year. Ocon finished sixth and was for ten laps complicating the Asturian driver's race. Even though they were from the same team, there were moments of real danger.

Bahrain was a failure for Red Bull, but yesterday they bounced back a bit. Mercedes, after their third and fourth place in the first race, yesterday was bad. They have to improve. Alpine has very good forecasts as long as the reliability of Alonso's car improves.

But the best by far are Ferrari with four podiums in two races. Leclerc, first and second, and Sainz second and third are dominating the start of the championship so far.