SEBASTIAN Vettel has continued his dream start to 2018 with a second win to send Merdeces reeling in Bahrain.
The German was able to successfully hold off Valtteri Bottas in the dying laps as the Finn rapidly closed the gap to inches by the final turn. Lewis Hamilton was able to score a place on the podium, searing ahead of the pack after starting ninth with a gear box penalty in qualifying.
Red Bull suffered an early disaster with Daniel Ricciardo (engine failure) and Max Verstappen (puncture) departing the race by the fifth lap.
Vettel scrapes through to thrilling win
Sebastian Vettel held off a rampaging Valtteri Bottas for the final five laps as the Mercedes gun closed the gap to a tense 0.5s in the final stretch of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The win was the German’s 49th victory in his 200th start in Formula 1.
Lewis Hamilton gave Mercedes a double podium by snagging third after a horror qualifying weekend saw him penalised down to ninth place on the grid following a gearbox change.
Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen left Red Bull fans on the verge of tears after an engine failure to the Aussie and a puncture to the Dutchman saw the pair both exit the race by the fifth lap.
But in all the drama, the most nailbiting moment of the night went to Kimi Raikkonen. The Finnish star had the commentators gasping after a botched pit stop from his Ferrari crew saw him given the green light to take off early and collect a mechanic in the process.
You can just see completed mix emotions on some of the Ferrari staff and mechanics. Some happy with the win and others concerned with their mechanic who just received an awful broken leg and must’ve been absolutely screaming and crying in pain. #BahrainGP#F1
— 🐥Samuel Carvalho🐣 (@SamCarvalho) April 8, 2018
Raikkonen said he “didn’t know” how his mechanic was faring after the incident.
“I don’t know what shape he is in. It is not great for him. I go when the light is green,” he said. “(There’s) not much to say. We did not finish the race, so it is not great but this is what happens sometimes.”
Mechanic hit in pit lane chaos
Absolute chaos in the Ferrari pits.Source:Supplied
Kimi Raikkonen was forced to the back of the pack after a stunning pit lane failure ended in a mechanic being hit by the Finn’s Ferrari.
Raikkonen was given the green light to exit the pits too early after stopping for fresh tyres and collected the Scuderia crew member as he took off. Alarming footage showed the mechanic flip over Raikkonen’s rear left wheel and crumple over in pain.
Ferrari reported the mechanic was taken to hospital as fears grew of a broken leg.
Raikkonen was eventually forced out of the race following the terrifying incident.
Race leader and Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel held his spot at the top of the pack through the chaos as Valtteri Bottas (second) and Lewis Hamilton (third) trailed behind in the hope of a Mercedes double podium.
Bottas’ hopes of claiming Mercedes’ first win of the year grew as the Finn closed the gap between himself and Vettel. The Ferrari continually lost ground into the final five laps as the gap between the silver bullet behind him shrunk to under two seconds.
Devastated Dan speaks
Daniel Ricciardo has addressed the media in the Red Bull bunker following his disastrous lap two exit at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
It’s understood the Aussie star was thwarted by an electrical engine issue.
“It’s hard. I was fired up, like always,” The 28-year-old said. “You wait all day for it and, after two minutes, it’s over. I lost all power. That’s the harsh reality of our sport sometimes. It rips your heart out.”
Shake-up as Vettel pits
Valtteri Bottas squeezed into first place on the 18th lap as race leader Sebastian Vettel pitted. The move from Ferrari saw Lewis Hamilton slide into the top three within the first half an hour, a stunning feat considering the Englishman started on the back foot in ninth following a grid penalty in qualifying.
“I can’t help but think this is swinging towards Mercedes,” Martin Brundle said as the commentators questioned the Scuderia’s choice to pit their key man early.
Hamilton was ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and teammate Bottas in first place by the 22nd lap, but a freshly pitted Vettel returned to the top with a vengeance in the 26th with a stunning overtake of the Englishman.
Sparks fly in shocking start
An absolute nightmare for the Aussie.Source:Getty Images
Kimi Raikkonen butchered his start from the front row and lost a place after Valtteri Bottas scraped ahead in a chaotic beginning to the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel got away unscathed as the first lap unfolded, but then disaster struck.
Max Verstappen, surging ahead from a 15th place start, bumped wheels with Lewis Hamilton through Turn One and suffered a race-ending puncture.
As if Red Bull’s nightmare couldn’t get any worse, Daniel Ricciardo was forced out with a puncture as well. The Aussie star, who was in prime position to snag a podium finish with heavyweights Verstappen and Hamilton down the grid, threw his hands up in heartbreak as he left his car.
Hamilton proved his worth as the defending champion and worked his way into fourth place by the eighth lap.
“Utter brilliant madness,” Martin Brundle said.
A double DNF for Red Bull. Heartbreaking, and we still don’t get to see their longform race pace. Sigh. #F1#BahrainGP
— Raja Sen (@RajaSen) April 8, 2018
Crowd’s dig at Hamitlon
Lewis Hamilton was already reeling at a last-minute gearbox change forcing him back to ninth on the grid, and the Bahrain crowd wasn’t shy of putting the slipper in as the 2017 champion rolled up to his spot.
The Times reporter Bec Clancy revealed that cheering erupted as the Englishman was put into the No. 9 rectangle before the race as bitter rival Sebastian Vettel rolled into pole.
Ferrari has a huge advantage over Mercedes this race with both drivers qualifying on the front row.
Hamilton ready for hardest race
Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes are braced for “one of the hardest races for us in some time” in Sunday’s Bahrain GP.
The Silver Arrows and Hamilton were emphatically beaten by Ferrari in qualifying on Saturday with Hamilton relegated to ninth place on the grid due to a gearbox penalty.
And Hamilton said the team were simply lacking pace compared with their Maranello rivals.
“Today wasn’t the best of days and tomorrow is going to be one of the hardest races for us in some time,” said the world champion.
“We’ve been trying to get ahead of the Ferraris, but it has been tough, they just had the pace all weekend.”
Although it was Valtteri Bottas, and not Hamilton, who proved the quicker of the Mercedes cars in Q3, the W09 was beaten to the front row by 0.166 seconds.
Hamilton, who stressed at the start of the weekend the battle at the front was closer than it appeared in Melbourne, reiterated Mercedes had a serious challenge on their hands.
“Ferrari have obviously done a great job,” Hamilton told reporters. “Their engine is definitely not weaker than ours, they are looking very strong.
“We’ll see how that is reliability-wise but car-wise they are on par with us and this weekend they are ahead of us.
“It may switch race to race but I can tell you it’s going to be a bloody close championship. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Lewis has his work cut out for him starting from ninth.Source:Getty Images
The Sakhir circuit features several sections with corners that offer drivers the chance to take different lines while in wheel-to-wheel battle and is therefore one of the calendar’s more overtaking-friendly circuits.
Hamilton, who will start on the slower soft tyres in anticipation of a long first stint, hopes he can make early gains but accepts progress will be tougher if and when he reaches the top five.
“I just hope that we’re moving forwards,” he said.
“I’m going to get a positive mental thinking and hopefully the set-up works well in the race. But it’s definitely going to be tough.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to get up to at least where Ricciardo is and overtaking from then on is going to be very tough.”
No driver has yet finished on the Bahrain podium when starting outside the top four in the current engine era and Hamilton says he will simply do all he can to make tangible progress from the fourth row.
“If I can overtake I’ll overtake, if I can’t I can’t,” he added.
“What will be will be and I’m just going to try and prepare the best I can.”
Bottas starts from a more favourable third position but Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff conceded: “From pure pace tomorrow, I would say the two Ferraris are clearly the favourites.”
— James Galloway, skysports
McLaren chief demands investigation
McLaren chief Eric Boullier has admitted he was astonished by the team’s inability to challenge for a top-10 starting berth for the Bahrain GP and demanded an investigation into their performance.
McLaren have brought an extensive upgrade for their car this weekend, sparking optimism they could challenge the frontrunners this weekend after Fernando Alonso finished fifth in the season-opening Australian GP.
But Alonso could only qualify 13th in Bahrain, a place ahead of teammate Stoffel Vandoorne. Perhaps of greater concern, Alonso’s fastest lap was over two seconds shy of Sebastian Vettel’s pole position time.
“There is need for a big investigation,” said Boullier to Sky Sports F1. “We need to find out what is going on.
“We need to find out why and I am going to ask some questions to the factory. I’m astonished like all of us on the pit wall. We need to understand what happened.”
Boullier was later absent from McLaren’s media summit as he attended an extended engineering debrief.
Alonso, who was 11th in qualifying in Australia, said: “It was a bad surprise. We didn’t expect to be that far back.
“It was a poor performance from us. We are definitely not happy.”
“Definitely a little bit worse than expectations. We thought we would be challenging for Q3. But we realised in Q1 we were not competitive,” Alonso added.
“The nature of the circuit is far from ideal for our car. We came here looking at last year’s performance and it was not great, it was one of the worst performances.
“Unfortunately we saw again that this is a circuit we do not have into our hands yet in terms of approach or set-up. That’s something we need to keep analysing, but the new parts on the car work fine.”
— Pete Gill, skysports
