Vettel Wins Thrilling Bahrain GP

Sebastian Vettel dominated the race today to take yet another victory and cement his lead in the championship battle.  As the lights went out, he slipped to third behind Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso, but it was only a matter of corners before the young German out foxed his 2012 title rival to grab second and then a couple of laps later, Vettel took Rosberg for the lead and never looked back.  Well done sir.

It was far from the processional race that we can expect around the Sakhir circuit, in fact it was a proper Grand Prix, with plenty of wheel to wheel battles, drivers jostling for position and strategies playing out.  We like this, it’s what Formula 1 racing should be all about.

Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean had a great afternoon too, showing just how quick the Lotus is to grab 2nd and 3rd on the podium.  Romain’s 3rd place wasn’t decided until the closing laps as he eventually caught and passed Paul Di Resta, denying the Scot of his first podium in F1.  You could feel the Scottish hearts sink.

Hearts also sank at Ferrari when it emerged that Fernando Alonso’s DRS flap was stuck open following an issue with the system and after an emergency pit stop, Alonso had no choice but to complete the rest of the race without DRS.  This didn’t stop him though, he grabbed a solid 8th place.

Hamilton had a tricky day and was always going to when coming from 9th on the grid, but some consistent laps and more wheel to wheel battles saw him nab 5th on the last lap, ahead of Sergio Perez and Mark Webber.  While his team mate was out in front, Mark Webber had a tricky day and struggled with his Red Bull, with 7th being the best he could hope for.

Sergio Perez’s afternoon was also far from straight-forward as the young Mexican seemingly ignored the rest of the field and concentrated purely on racing his team mate Jenson Button for the entire race, with the two battling side by side, wheel to wheel, on and off the track.  Perez managed to get away with tapping Button a couple of times, but in the end Jenson’s tyres didn’t work out and he dropped to 10th, while Perez finished 6th.  McLaren boss, Martin Whitmarsh said he wanted a ‘more fighty’ Perez and that’s exactly what he got as he pushed the Button all the way.

Sadly, for Nico Rosberg his pole position celebrations on Saturday amounted to a far from earth shattering 9th place today with the Mercedes lacking any solid race pace and seemingly eating up its tyres more than the rest of the field.

And that’s the top 10, here’s the rest of full provisional classification for the Bahrain Grand Prix, we’ll have more analysis and chatter soon.