Race Results

1st    Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull-Renault - 25 pts
2nd   Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus-Renault - 18 pts
3rd    Romain Grosjean - Lotus-Renault - 15 pts
4th    Mark Webber - Red Bull-Renault - 12 pts
5th    Nico Rosberg - Mercedes - 10 pts
6th    Paul Di Resta - Force India-Mercedes - 8 pts
7th    Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 6 pts
8th    Lewis Hamilton - McLaren-Mercedes - 4 pts
9th    Felipe Massa - Ferrari - 2 pts
10th  Michael Schumacher - Mercedes - 1 pt

World champion Sebastian Vettel took his first victory of 2012 in a close battle with Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver built an early lead from pole but was caught by the Finn, who started 11th, after half distance.

Vettel then pulled away after the final pit stops, despite Raikkonen’s attempts to close him down.

Lotus’s Romain Grosjean was third, with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton finishing eighth and Jenson Button retiring.

Force India’s Paul di Resta, doing a two-stop strategy in contrast to the three employed by the rest of the main contenders, drove an excellent, studied race to take sixth place.

The Scot was running fifth going into the final 10 laps but was helpless to defend from Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, who was on fresher tyres in the closing laps.

Di Resta seemed poised to lose a further place to Button, but the Briton’s McLaren suffered a puncture with three laps to go and dropped out of the points, before retiring on the penultimate lap with a broken exhaust.

The Scot also just managed to hold off a challenge from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in the closing laps.

Rosberg was investigated for possible dangerous driving in defending from both Hamilton and Alonso earlier in the race, but was cleared of any wrongdoing by the stewards.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa produced his strongest race of the season to take ninth, ahead of Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher, who battled up from 22nd on the grid.

The result means Vettel takes the championship lead, after starting the race in fifth place, while Hamilton has slipped down to second, ahead of Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber – who finished fourth in Bahrain – Button and Alonso.

Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit is notorious for producing uninteresting races, but this was an exception, with a tense battle for the lead and several wheel-to-wheel scraps down the field.

Vettel stormed into the lead from pole, building a five-second lead after eight laps in the sort of performance that won him 11 races on his way to the title last year.

“It was an incredible race,” said the German. “We had a very good start, which was crucial. I was able to pull away from the pack which turned out to be a good advantage because we always had to go on used tyres.

“Kimi was quick, and so was Romain. It was a difficult race. Once he was close, I thought he would have more than one shot, but in the end I was able to pull out of a gap.”

Raikkonen was judging his rise from 11th place on the grid to perfection, his low qualifying position a tactical ploy to ensure he had more sets of new tyres to use in a race that all teams expected to be dominated by tyre management in the high temperatures.

After 10 laps, Raikkonen was up to third place behind Vettel and Grosjean and he continued to close on the leading pair after they had all made their first pit stops.

He passed Grosjean on lap 24, and then began to close on Vettel, who he caught by lap 33.

But the Finn could not pass the Red Bull and after they stopped together for the final time on lap 39, Vettel eased away and Raikkonen could not hold him.

“It’s always easy to say if afterwards, but in the end we were not fast enough,” he said. “I had one chance to pass Sebastian but I chose the wrong side. I didn’t get another chance. We gave ourselves a chance, but we didn’t do it.”

The race provided a fascinating spectacle throughout, but it did little to distract from the main focus of the weekend – the wisdom or otherwise of deciding to hold the race in Bahrain in the midst of ongoing civil unrest. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

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Mike Raybone
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The gap between the Malaysian Grand Prix last month and the next race in China is longer than normal at three weeks, and the Formula 1 teams will be using that time to do everything they can to improve their competitiveness.

The teams sent their cars straight from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai – although Lotus did bring a chassis back to the UK for repairs and some other tests.

Most will be bringing new parts to the race in Shanghai, which is 13-15 April, but those developments will mostly be products of a programme that started during pre-season testing.

Developments take time – and teams need to plan what they want and when.

Three weeks is not long enough to make major new parts for an F1 car – although it is just about sufficient time to build a small development.

In the gap between the two races, it will have been possible to make simple bits if they were considered necessary – perhaps a front-wing flap or endplate, or a part of a sidepod around the exhaust exits, or something like that.

But a major structural part such as a front wing takes a bit longer – more like four weeks. So most developments that appear in China will have been in the pipeline since before the first race of the season in Australia. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

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Mike Raybone
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Race Results

1st    Fernando Alonso - Ferrari - 25 pts
2nd   Sergio Perez - Sauber - 18 pts
3rd    Lewis Hamilton - McLaren-Mercedes - 15 pts
4th    Mark Webber - Red Bull-Renault - 12 pts
5th    Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus-Renault - 10 pts
6th    Bruno Senna - Williams-Renault - 8 pts
7th    Paul Di Resta - Force India-Mercedes - 6 pts
8th    Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso-Ferrari - 4 pts
9th    Nico Hulkenberg - Force India-Mercedes - 2 pts
10th  Michael Schumacher - Mercedes GP - 1 pt

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso held off Sauber’s Sergio Perez to take a sensational victory in a thrilling, rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Ferrari is uncompetitive in the dry, but Alonso built a lead when the race resumed on a wet track after an early stoppage following heavy rain.

Perez caught him in the closing stages but ran wide and settled for second.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton took third ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen.

Alonso built a seven-second lead after the race resumed following a stoppage after just six laps caused by a torrential downpour.

But, as the track dried, Perez closed the Spaniard’s lead to virtually nothing.

Alonso gained some respite when he switched to dry-weather slick tyres a lap before Perez, which took his lead back up to seven seconds.

After fitting the ‘hard’ tyres while Alonso chose the ‘medium’, Perez closed the gap to nothing in 10 laps and was on Alonso’s tail at the start of lap 50, with seven to go.

But no sooner had Perez caught the Ferrari than he made a mistake.

He got on to the kerb at Turn 14 and ran wide, and suddenly Alonso’s lead was back up to five seconds.

Although Perez closed in again, Alonso now had enough of a cushion to take a 28th career victory – behind only Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell in the all-time list.

Alonso, who is now leading the world championship by five points from Hamilton, said the victory was “a big surprise”.

“We were not competitive in Australia or here,” he added. “Our goal was to score as many points as possible and we did the job.

“It is an unbelievable result, a great job from the team. We maximised the potential in our hands, keeping calm in some strange conditions at the beginning with inters and the switching to dry tyres.

“The team deserve this win. It’s a tough time for us at the moment, but this is a Sunday we will remember.”

Perez said he felt he had missed an opportunity to win.

“I was catching Fernando towards the end of the race,” he said.

“I knew I had to get him soon because in all the high-speed corners I was losing my front tyres running behind him.

“Then I ran wide in the quick left-hander. I touched the kerb and I went onto the dirty side of the track. It was completely wet and I lost the win.”

It was a remarkable result considering Ferrari’s struggles with their car – and it was matched by Perez’s performance.

The race started on a damp track after a shower of rain, with most drivers on the ‘intermediate’ tyres with relatively light treads.

But heavy rain started on lap two, and Perez immediately dived into the pits to fit full wet tyres.

It worked to the Mexican’s favour. As the leading drivers pitted for wet tyres on laps four and five, he moved up the field and was lying third behind the two McLarens of Hamilton and Button when the race was stopped on lap six – when Alonso was fifth behind Webber.

But the decisive part of the race came after the re-start, as Alonso emerged in second place after all the drivers had stopped to fit intermediate tyres and immediately passed Perez for the lead on lap 16.

He pulled away in relentless fashion, the fastest car on the track for several laps, building what turned out to be a decisive lead of 7.7 seconds on lap 30, before Perez began to come back at him.

Alonso’s experience told in the end, but both men celebrated one of the most remarkable and unexpected results in recent F1 history.

Third-placed Lewis Hamilton said: “I think we can be satisfied. First of all congratulations to Fernando and Sergio, they both drove fantastically well and it was very difficult to catch them.

“I can’t really complain, I was on the podium for the second race in a row.” (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

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Mike Raybone
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