Bahrain Grand Prix: Vettel and Ferrari outfox Mercedes

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Sebastian Vettel scored his second victory of the 2017 Formula 1 World championship season, triumphing at the Bahrain Grand Prix despite starting behind the pace setting Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas who finished second and third respectively.

From the start Vettel blitzed past a sluggish starting Hamilton (on the dirty side of the track) and tucked in behind pole winner Bottas, he then proceeded to harass and stalk the leader who had to pull out all the defensive moves he had in his arsenal to keep the red car at bay.

With little chance of getting by and a slew of rivals lining up behind him, Vettel pitted the Ferrari on lap 11, bolting on another set of Pirelli super soft tyres. He emerged 12th and in clean air.

The next couple of laps were incident packed, first Max Verstappen (who followed Vettel's example and pitted early) suffered brake failure on his Red Bull and ended up in the wall. Race over.

Moments later, in a separate incident, Williams rookie Lance Stroll turned into Carlos Sainz who was emerging from a pitstop. The pair collided, with the Williams coming to halt in the middle of the track on the exit of Turn 1. A very short shift for the pair of them.

The safety car was deployed to allow marshals to clear the track, which prompted Bottas and Hamilton to pit, the latter doing so in front of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, but slowing him down in the process while Mercedes fumbled Bottas' stop.

As a result the stewards gave Hamilton a five seconds penalty for impeding Ricciardo during the flurry of pit stops.

On track Vettel still led from Bottas, both on super soft tyres and on a two stop strategy, with Ricciardo third and Hamilton fourth, the latter opting for the yellow band softs and a one stop plan apparently in place at this point.

Vettel was on it immediately after the restart, while Ricciardo went backwards. Hamilton was also on the move and was soon harrying his teammate who was told to let the triple World Champion through. He would be told to do so again, later in the race.

Hamilton then put the hammer down and was soon making a dent into Vettel's lead despite running the harder tyre. Ferrari pitted Vettel and bolted on a set of softs, upon which the German reversed the roles and started hunting down the Mercedes.

When it was clear Hamilton did not have the rubber to make it to the end, Mercedes pitted him and again Hamilton had to chase. But he ran out of laps as Vettel took the chquered flag for his third win in Bahrain, his 44th grand prix victory and with topping the championship table after three rounds.

Vettel said aftewards, "It was a really great day. It was the last half of the out lap when all the fireworks were going off I was like: I love what I do. It was a great team effort today and I felt like we are quick. I tried to put Valtteri under pressure."

"The early pit stop worked. When the safety car came I was like: not again! I thought we would have lost the advantage but I had a good feeling yesterday. Lewis was obviously a threat again towards the end but the car was a dream," added Vettel.

Hamilton was second with teammate Bottas a distant third. The Mercedes juggernaut well and truly halted by Vettel and Ferrari in the battle of Bahrain.

Hamilton summed up, "Congratulations to Seb. The pitlane was my fault and apologies to the team. I tried my hardest to catch up. We will push hard together, keep fighting. Losing points for the team is definitely painful but it is what it is. I am getting old!"

Bottas commented, "It was really tricky race. I struggled with the pace all through the race. I was limited and was out of tools on the steering wheel and I was oversteering all through the race and that's why they pace was slow. But it was the best weekend for me so far and I think there is a lot more to come from me with this team."

Kimi Raikkonen was again comprehensively overshadowed by his teammate and unable to offer any kind of support to Vettel in the battle with the two Silver Arrows. Nevertheless the veteran Finn managed to finish fourth amid another race packed with complaints over the radio to his crew.

Ricciardo was fifth, but it was clear that despite some early pace the Red Bull in its current guise is simply no match for Mercedes and Ferrari, and doing their drivers no favours.

At the race start, pole sitter Bottas led through Turn One. Hamilton, though, lost out and was passed by Vettel as the field streamed through the first corner.

Verstappen made an excellent start to rise from sixth on the grid to fourth by the end of lap one, the Dutchman profiting from Hamilton’s poor start and the fact that the Briton backed up Ricciardo as they went into the first corner, with the result that the Australian was demoted to fifth ahead of Williams’ Felipe Massa. Ferrari’s Raikkonen, meanwhile, dropped to seventh from fifth on the grid.

Over the opening laps, Bottas was unable to carve out a significant lead and by the time the drivers were starting their 1oth lap, just three seconds separated the top five drivers.

With a Vettel was the first to take a strategic gamble, pitting on lap 11 to take on more supersofts. Verstappen noted it and request similar action but when he emerged from his first stop he almost immediately arrowed off track and into the barriers, reporting brake failure.

Moments later Vettel’s early stop reaped dividends when the Safety Car was called into action when Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll collided in Turn One, with the Williams’ driver’s car stranded on track.

Bottas pitted and Vettel inherited the lead. Hamilton was brought into the pits at the same time as his team-mate and as he approached the pit entry the Briton slowed dramatically to minimise waiting time in the stacked stop.

As a consequence Ricciardo, also on his way to pit lane, was held up badly. The incident eventually led to a five-second penalty for Hamilton, who was punished for driving unnecessarily slowly in the pit lane.

When they emerged supersoft-shod Vettel led from the similarly equipped Bottas, while Ricciardo and Hamilton, both now on softs, were in third and fourth respectively.

When the safety car left the track, Ricciardo’s tyres appeared to be far from the right operating window and he was rapidly passed by Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen.

At the front, Vettel began to eke out a gap to Bottas and by lap 26 the German had 4.8 seconds in hand over Bottas and a second more over Hamilton. On lap 27, though, Hamilton surged past Bottas to claim P2.

Soon after, Ricciardo was also the move. Raikkonen had passed Massa and on lap 29 the Brazilian was passed by the Red Bull driver, under DRS and under braking through Turn One.

On lap 31 Bottas pitted for the final time, taking on soft tyres. Ahead Hamilton was catching Vettel, whose supersoft tyres, by lap 32, were beginning to look spent. With the gap to Hamilton shrinking Ferrari opted to put the German on lap 34.

Vettel took on a set of softs for his final stint and rejoined in P3 behind Raikkonen. He was soon past his team-mate, however, and then he began to chase down Hamilton, lapping a second quicker than the Briton as he ate into the 15.7 seconds deficit.

By lap 39 the gap was down to 12.1 seconds and closing. Behind them, Bottas was now third ahead of Ricciardo who had inherited fourth when Raikkonen made his final stop for soft tyres. The Australian then made his final stop, for supersofts on lap 40 and prepared for a late-race blast from fifth place.

Hamilton made his final stop on lap 42, serving his five-second penalty and taking on soft tyres. He dropped to third, 9.4 seconds behind Bottas and 19s behind Vettel who was now looking comfortable in pursuit of his second win of the season.

The race looked like it might open up again in the final stages after Hamilton passed Bottas and then began to scythe through a 13-second gap to Vettel, but the German held his nerve and applied the pace necessary to keep Hamilton at bay to take the 44th win of his career.

With Hamilton second and Bottas third, fourth place went to Raikkonen who finished 16.8 seconds ahead of Ricciardo. Massa was sixth for Williams, while Force India’s Sergio Perez enjoyed a great evening’s work to rise from P18 on the grid to seventh place at the flag.

Romain Grosjean was eighth for Haas and the final points placings went to Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon in the second Force India.

The McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne was pushed off the grid with engine issues, the Belgian unable to start the race a year after making his debut for the team at the same venue.