Hamilton wins Bahrain Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix, GP Bahrain, Bahrain International Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has won the Bahrain Grand Prix, leading nearly every lap but 5 due to a different strategy for Raikkonen. The Finn finished second for Ferrari, passing Rosberg 3 laps from the end. The latter finished in third place.

Even before things got started, Button was informed he was unable to start. The Briton had been due to line up 20th after suffering technical gremlins in qualifying. The team made numerous changes and fired his car up today, only for the data to flag a potential ERS issue. McLaren opted not to take the risk, and Button will therefore miss the Grand Prix.

Sainz also had a setback before the race as he was given a 5-second penalty for exceeding the maximum time over his reconnaissance laps.

Felipe Massa on the other hand had to start from the pitlane as Williams struggled to get his car fired up in time.

As the lights went out, Hamilton got a clean and great start off the line, easily retaining his first place. Behind him however, Rosberg attempted to come second, but got squeezed on the inside of turn 1 and saw Raikkonen follow Vettel through the first corners, forcing him to settle for fourth.

It didn't take long however as Rosberg made two very clean and forceful passes on the Ferraris to move up into second place.

Verstappen incurred front wing damage from getting passed by Maldonado on the grid, forcing him to stop for a change of front wing. Maldonado on the other hand was later handed a 5s stop-and-go penalty for being out of position on the grid.

Lower down the field, Massa picked off his old Ferrari team mate Alonso and moved up to 13th. Maldonado and Kvyat queued up behind, both within DRS range.

On lap 15, Vettel pits, followed by Rosberg one lap later to react on the move. However, as the Mercedes driver returned to the track, he found himself to be trailing the Ferrari. Another lap later, Rosberg again made it past the Ferrari, and found himself within DRS range of Hamilton after the latter made his stop. The latter however soon picked up where he left off and slowly started to increase his advantage.

Lap 31 marks the end of the race for Carlos Sainz, the Spaniard parking his car alongside the track, following an issue on the front left. Sparks were coming off the front left before Sainz made an end to it.

Meanwhile at the front, Hamilton continued to lead the race, consistently but only slightly fastest than Rosberg, until the reining World Champion pits on lap 33. That dropped him to to third, behind Raikkonen who continued to run on a rather old set of mediums. Rosberg pitted one lap later and rejoined the track in 3rd, just behind Vettel.Vettel's lead over Rosberg though didn't take all that long as the Ferrari driver went too wide on the last corner, allowing Rosberg to take the third easily.

With the leading 4 on new mediums, Raikkonen's advantage is 5.4s over Hamilton. Rosberg is another 7 seconds down. Vettel meanwhile complained of understeer and decided to pit for a new front wing. Vettel rejoined the action in 5th place, around 6 seconds behind Valtteri Bottas.

At the same time, Verstappen returned to the pits to retire from the race, ending Toro Rosso's Grand Prix 20 laps early.

On lap 39, Alonso unlaps himself by passing Raikkonen, making use of the new soft tyres on his McLaren. The pass however made it a bit easier for Hamilton to get a go on the Finn. Half a lap later, on the main straight, Hamilton easily got past the Ferrari to get the lead back.

On lap 41, Raikkonen pitted to take on new soft tyres, coming back out on track in third place, 13 seconds down on Rosberg but set for a recovery compared to Rosberg on the mediums.

Towards the end of the race, Raikkonen came very close to Rosberg with the two trying to get through traffic as quickly as they can. Having managed that, Rosberg eventually made a mistake under braking for turn 1, going wide and allowing Raikkonen an easy pass into second place (the team however later excused itself to Rosberg, indicating his 'mistake' was a technical issue with the brake-by-wire system).

Vettel made a similar mistake a few laps early, nearly bumping into Bottas and only just managing to avoid a collision. The German had no further chance to get past and finished 5th behind Bottas.

Hamilton meanwhile won the race, even though he reported a Brake-by-wire problem on the penultimate lap. It was just enough to keep the lead, as it would seem that encountering that issue a few laps earlier would have cost him the win.

Ricciardo finished 6th, blowing up his Renault engine on the final acceleration out of the final corner.