The race in the lights of Bahrain turned out to be really beautiful not only because the venue looked fantastic but also because of true racing competition which unfolded on the track. At last the pilots remembered that they are not taxi drivers but sportsmen who have to use the tools they are equipped with and need to unlock their full potential. And that was a really keen struggle. The Mercedes Team won the Bahrain Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton scored his second victory after the Malaysian Grand Prix, Nico Rosberg was second and Sergio Pérez came third.
The results demonstrated during the qualifying proved to everyone that the pilots had finally learned to understand the language of their cars. It was not raining this time and actual time was demonstrated by the race cars in the festive twilight as the qualifying was held in the evening. Best time was shown by Nico Rosberg (1:33.708) with Hamilton, Bottas (Williams) and Pérez (Force India) behind him. Actually, Ricciardo had to be third but he lost 10 positions following the incident in Malaysia when he left the pits with a loose wheel. Daniil Kvyat took 13th position in qualifying (1:35.395) and was 12th on the starting grid.
Later Nico Rosberg confessed that it was really difficult for him to show best lap time as all the practice sessions were held in daytime when the temperature of the asphalt was higher. Eventually, the drivers had to apply different adjustments during the qualifying: “It worked out well. I felt comfortable and got my laps together, so I'm very happy. It’s really a pleasure to win the pole position”. Hamilton was obviously happy for Nico but all his thoughts were about the race: “First of all, both Nico and I will have to keep the cars safe, save fuel and control other settings. It’s a skill-challenging track, you have to take the changes in wind direction and elevation into account. There are quite a lot of difficulties together with the gradual temperature drop as the race is held in the nighttime”.
In spite of the great result demonstrated by Ricciardo, the driver is getting ready to face some difficulties: “Unfortunately, I can’t have second starting position tomorrow, it is going to be a difficult race but I’m looking forward to it”. As reported by f1news.ru, Sergio Pérez also stayed positive: “No one knows what happens in the first corner but I hope to have a good start and we’ll see what comes next. What concerns the choice of tactics, you should talk to my racing engineer who is responsible for it, but hopefully we’ve got good chances for the podium”.
By the way, Adrian Sutil (Sauber) lost five positions on the grid for forcing Romain Grosjean's Lotus off the road in qualifying and eventually was the last to start.
The drivers had to go 57 laps with the distance of each lap equal to 5,412 m. The race set off right at the time when the twilight fell upon the island. In the history of this Grand Prix it was the first race held under artificial lights which was rather beneficial. This decision was taken by the organisers to celebrate the anniversary of this racing venue.
The wheel-to-wheel struggle began right from the start; however, the roar of the engines was missing. Hamilton overtook Rosberg right away, Massa (Williams) broke through from seventh to third position, Vergne (Toro Rosso) went to the pits after crashing with Maldonado (Lotus): “It was a bit of a mess at the start in turn 8 with a lot of cars around me... When I then found myself next to a Lotus, I got squeezed more and more and when he realized I was about to overtake him anyway, he just closed the door. That is why our wheels touched and my car took off, out of control. Both rear wing and floor got heavily damaged with a huge loss of aero performance and it was just not possible to continue my race...” Yes, starting from that point Pastor Maldonado got a superpower of throwing cars into the air but we’ll get back to it later.
The duel between Hamilton and Rosberg was heating up and they took the lead with Nico tailgating Lewis ready to attack his teammate whenever possible. Surprisingly, there was no traditional team tactics used in such cases. All the commands from the Mercedes pits were utterly correct if there were any at all. These two pilots really brought a lot of action. Meanwhile, all the drivers were having a close competition. Pérez overtook Massa and became third. Sutil was in a fighting mood but had to leave his car in the pits after two contacts with Bianchi (Marussia). By the way, the team’s bosses assured mass media that it did not depend in any way on Marussia car manufacturer, which had recently ceased to exist, and the racing team operated as usual.
Rosberg performed several serious attacks directed at Hamilton and though he even managed to overtake his teammate on lap 19, Lewis was able to restore status quo several laps later.
At that very moment Mercedes pilots heard team warnings to slow down. After the restart they had a huge 11-second gap from the rest of the pack! And again there were a lot of attacks performed by Nico but Lewis turned out to be the first to climb the podium, his teammate was second and Sergio Pérez was third scoring the second podium in the history of the Force India team. Daniil Kvyat was 11th to cross the finish line without scoring any points this time: “Unfortunately today didn't go as I would have liked. We need to work harder. I was not happy with our pace and it was frustrating to see other cars just passing me by...”
In the end of the race, after jumping out of their cars, two Mercedes pilots had a play fight and were met with warm embraces by their team. On the podium the pilots were spraying each other with soda and made no bones about their happiness after finishing the race.
Lewis Hamilton: “This is my first win here in Bahrain and it took me a long time to achieve it. It was really exciting, Nico Rosberg drove fantastically well from the very start to the finish line. It was so fair but it was so hard to keep him behind me... I think that everyone finally saw the race with plenty of overtakings and I’m happy I managed to keep in the lead!”
Pastor Maldonado will take a five-place grid penalty for the next race and will have three penalty points added to his licence for hoisting the cars of his rivals into the air. Hopefully, he changes his attitude towards other cars on the race track...
Photo: f1fanatic.co.uk
