The time gap between the first place Verstappen and the second place Hamilton is 1.131 seconds.
You can clearly see on the broadcast screen that there is a gap of at least three car lengths between Verstappen and Hamilton, while the distance between Hamilton and Perez is at most one car.
When the race reached the third lap and DRS was enabled, the time gap between Verstappen and Hamilton had already grown to 1.8 seconds.
It's worth noting that the Bahrain Sakhir circuit is still quite suitable for Mercedes' W14 to leverage its advantage in straight-line speed and acceleration.
But before this season started, no one expected that Verstappen could open up such a large time gap in just the first three laps of the first race.
Even though Red Bull Racing was indeed the constructors' champion last season, and it seemed as if the wind tunnel and CFD reductions after winning the championship didn't even affect them; instead, Red Bull's performance became even stronger.
