(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Mercedes Lewis Hamilton won an absolutely sensational Bahrain Grand Prix under the lights at the Sakhir circuit and for anyone who says Formula One 2014 is boring you just have to look at what an incredible race we had today.
Hamilton's team mate Nico Rosberg started the race from pole position, however Hamilton managed to get passed Rosberg into Turn 1. The pair traded the lead for the entire race, but such is the advantage that the Brackley based team at the moment they didn't look back taking an utterly fantastic 1-2 finish for the second race in succession.
It was all drama behind the Mercedes duo as Sergio Perez took a fantastic podium for the Sahara Force India Formula One team who claimed their second Formula One podium. Nico Hulkenberg was happy with his performance was a little disappointed to lose out to Sergio Perez following a battle with Felipe Massa.
One of the stand out performances however, came from Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull. The Australian, who started the race from 13th on the grid carved his way through the field and show the Milton Keynes based team what he is capable of as he overtook team mate and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel to secure his first points of the season and his first points of his Red Bull career.
The Williams Martini Racing duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas gave the Grove based team another big point's haul finishing the race in 7th and 8th place respectively. However, the team cannot be happy with that result as Bottas started the race from third on the grid.
It was an incredibly tough race for the Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen as they could only manage to finish the race in 9th and 10th respectively which is not where the Italian team want to be. For Raikkonen in particular who out-qualified his team mate for the first time this season he will be left disappointed finishing behind Alonso in a car that is clearly down on power compared to their rivals.
It was an extremely disappointing race for Jenson Button who was celebrating his 250th Grand Prix
was forced to retire from the race after a great qualifying yesterday. It was a disappointing race for his team mate Kevin Magnussen who, for the second race in a row was involved in an incident with Kimi Raikkonen. The Dane went on to retire from the race with a gearbox problem.
Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat impressed despite losing out on the points as the Russian finished the race in 11th place ahead of the Lotus of Romain Grosjean. Pastor Maldonado, in the second Lotus was involved in a major incident with the Sauber of Esteban Gutierrez which saw the Mexican's car go upside down and then right side up. Fortunately he was uninjured. As a result of the accident the safety car was deployed and Maldonado was handed a 10 second stop go penalty which is likely to result in the Venezuelan receiving penalty points.
So it was an absolutely sensational Grand Prix and just goes to show that F1 2014 is not boring.
Drivers Championship:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 61 points
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 50
3 Nico Hulkenberg Sahara Force India 28
4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 26
5 Jenson Button McLaren 23
6 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 23
7 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 20
8 Valtteri Bottas Williams Martini Racing 18
9 Sergio Perez Sahara Force India 16
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 12
11 Felipe Massa Williams Martini Racing 12
12 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 7
13 Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 4
14 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 3
Constructors Championship
1 Mercedes AMG F1 Team 111 Points
2 Sahara Force India 44
3 McLaren Mercedes 43
4 Red Bull Racing 35
5 Ferrari 33
6 Williams Martini Racing 30
7 Toro Rosso 7
UPDATE: Pastor Maldonado has been given a five place grid penalty for the next race in China and has also been given 3 penalty points on his Super Licence. The team's now stay in Bahrain to take part in the first of the two day in season tests. It gets underway on Tuesday.
©Ben Johnston 2014
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