Valtteri Bottas, right, had the beating of his Mercedes-GP teammate Lewis Hamilton in Australia. Getty
Valtteri Bottas, right, had the beating of his Mercedes-GP teammate Lewis Hamilton in Australia. Getty
Valtteri Bottas, right, had the beating of his Mercedes-GP teammate Lewis Hamilton in Australia. Getty
Valtteri Bottas, right, had the beating of his Mercedes-GP teammate Lewis Hamilton in Australia. Getty

Lewis Hamilton faces tough task to derail Valtteri Bottas' momentum in Bahrain


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There was a time when winning the first race of a Formula One season was pivotal.

Between 1990 and 2009, the driver who won the opening round of the campaign went on to be champion 17 times. But it has been rather a different state of affairs in recent years.

Between 2010 and 2018, only three times has the man leading the championship after the first round gone on to clinch the title.

That probably explains why world champion Lewis Hamilton did not seem too disconcerted despite settling for second, behind Mercedes-GP teammate Valtteri Bottas, in the season opener in Australia earlier this month.

There are still 20 races to go, so there is a lot of laps still to be covered between now and the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on December 1.

However, Hamilton will not want to make losing to Bottas a regular occurrence and will want to hit back at Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Finn's confidence will have grown immensely from his dominant display in Melbourne, and Hamilton will be aware that allowing him to build momentum could potentially be dangerous to his hopes of a sixth drivers' title and a fifth in six years.

Hamilton does have the mitigating circumstance that his car had damage to its floor in Australia, which could explain some of the performance gap between the two Mercedes cars that led to Bottas winning by 20 seconds.

Bottas had been very close to Hamilton's pace all weekend, and had got the lead at the start thanks to the better getaway, which ultimately decided the race outcome.

Interestingly, Bahrain is a race Bottas has been strong at in the past and it may be a tough task for Hamilton to even things up on Sunday in Sakhir.

Bottas took pole in 2017 and it took team orders from Mercedes to get Hamilton past him in a race where both were beaten by the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

Then 12 months again it was Bottas who led the Mercedes challenge again as Vettel prevailed. Hamilton had suffered from a grid penalty that put him down the order, but he had still been out-qualified by his teammate.

Hamilton has only won twice in 11 previous visits, with the most recent success coming in 2015.

It is not that he struggles in Bahrain. He has had five other podium finishes there, but the past two years have definitely seen him out-performed by Bottas.

Another Bottas victory would certainly make things interesting. It would underline that he has raised his game after a winless 2018, and would determine to Hamilton that he is a championship contender.

Hamilton has enjoyed having Bottas as a teammate. A cynic would say that is because he has consistently proven to be quicker when it matters.

How that relationship may change, if indeed Bottas has evolved into a challenger, and it will be a fascinating development if the Finn continues to get the better of Hamilton.

Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso can all attest to the fact that Hamilton does not always play well with other teammates if he gets beaten by them.

Melbourne was one race but Bottas talked a good game beforehand about learning from past disappointments before backing it up on the track.

If the domination that Mercedes had in Australia replicates itself in Bahrain and at the forthcoming races then it could end up being another two-horse race between the drivers of the German marque's cars.

Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, and much of the F1 fandom across the world will hope that is not the case, but if it is then Bottas's ability to compete with Hamilton consistently will be crucial to an engaging season.

Bottas has never finished ahead of Hamilton in successive races when the championship has still been active. Previously it felt as though Hamilton needed to have a problem, or have the title already sewn up, for Bottas to win.

Australia bucked that trend. It is now a case of seeing if it was an one-off, or the start of a real inter-team duel.

US PGA Championship in numbers

Joost Luiten produced a memorable hole in one at the par-three fourth in the first round.

To date, the only two players to win the PGA Championship after winning the week before are Rory McIlroy (2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and Tiger Woods (2007, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational). Hideki Matsuyama or Chris Stroud could have made it three.

Number of seasons without a major for McIlroy, who finished in a tie for 22nd.

4 Louis Oosthuizen has now finished second in all four of the game's major championships.

In the fifth hole of the final round, McIlroy holed his longest putt of the week - from 16ft 8in - for birdie.

For the sixth successive year, play was disrupted by bad weather with a delay of one hour and 43 minutes on Friday.

Seven under par (64) was the best round of the week, shot by Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari on Day 2.

Number of shots taken by Jason Day on the 18th hole in round three after a risky recovery shot backfired.

Jon Rahm's age in months the last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the US PGA, in 1995.

10 Jimmy Walker's opening round as defending champion was a 10-over-par 81.

11 The par-four 11th coincidentally ranked as the 11th hardest hole overall with a scoring average of 4.192.

12 Paul Casey was a combined 12 under par for his first round in this year's majors.

13 The average world ranking of the last 13 PGA winners before this week was 25. Kevin Kisner began the week ranked 25th.

14 The world ranking of Justin Thomas before his victory.

15 Of the top 15 players after 54 holes, only Oosthuizen had previously won a major.

16 The par-four 16th marks the start of Quail Hollow's so-called "Green Mile" of finishing holes, some of the toughest in golf.

17 The first round scoring average of the last 17 major champions was 67.2. Kisner and Thorbjorn Olesen shot 67 on day one at Quail Hollow.

18 For the first time in 18 majors, the eventual winner was over par after round one (Thomas shot 73).