
Sebastian Vettel has won the Bahrain Grand Prix by the slimmest of margins to Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, a mere 0.699s, after just holding him off on tyres which were considerably worn. Fellow Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finished in third-place after coming through from ninth place, whilst Pierre Gasly finished a remarkable fourth place for Toro Rosso and earned the Driver of the Day award.
At the start, Vettel got a good getaway and led into turn 1, but Bottas managed to overtake Kimi Raikkonen for second place. Gasly made an impressive getaway and did overtake Ricciardo for fourth, though he was passed back not long after. The joy for Ricciardo was short-lived, however, as he retired from the race with a suspected electrical issue.
On lap 2, Max Verstappen, who was behind Hamilton, tried to overtake him and seemingly got the move done, but he tried squeezing him off and made contact with Hamilton's tyre in what was a clumsy and brainless manoeuvre, from which he suffered a puncture and retired with damage caused by the puncture.
A VSC (Virtual Safety Car) period was called as a result of all the bumping and barging at the start. On the restart, Hamilton made an impressive overtake where he took 3 cars at once - Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso to move up into sixth place. He quickly got past Kevin Magnussen for fifth, and soon after passed Gasly for fourth. Meanwhile, Brendon Hartley was given a 10s time-penalty (which he served in his pitstop) for his role in a collision with Sergio Perez.
On lap 19, Sebastian Vettel pitted for the soft tyres, whilst a lap later Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen also pitted for soft tyres. A lap later, Bottas pitted - and went out on medium tyres. At this point, it seemed as though Mercedes had made a great strategic move - as the mediums would have gone to the end without problem and thus they would not have had to stop again, but the Ferraris would have struggled on the softs to make it to the end and would likely have needed to stop again. Hamilton pitted 6 laps later (he was on the soft rather than the super-soft tyres, and hence the rather more durable tyre), and also switched to the medium tyres.
Raikkonen did make a second stop, and was set to go back out on the super-softs, however, he ran over a mechanic on exiting the pit box - as the system turned green which enabled him to get going - but one of the tyres had not even been removed, and, in the process of doing so, ran over a mechanic who was trying to insert the tyre. Unfortunately, the mechanic suffered a shinbone and fibula fracture as a result of the incident. We at Zarb times sincerely wish the mechanic a speedy recovery from the incident, and sincerely hope that he is OK. Ferrari have been fined €50,000 for the incident due to an unsafe release.
Bottas towards the end began to rapidly close the gap on Vettel, who was struggling on his soft tyres, but he made the one-stop strategy work and just fended off the Finn in the end. Hamilton completed the podium, whilst Gasly managed a remarkable fourth. Kevin Magnussen did an impressive job in securing fifth place for Haas, whilst Marcus Ericsson did an outstanding job for Sauber in making a one-stop strategy work and finished in ninth place, earning his first points in Formula 1 since the 2015 Italian Grand Prix, whilst Esteban Ocon earned Force India their first point of the season.
Also, Sergio Perez and Brendon Hartley were each awarded a 30s time-penalty for not following correct procedure on the formation lap: "Car 11 (Perez) overtook car 28 (Hartley) before Turn 1 and then during the remainder of the formation lap made no noticeable effort to allow car 28 to regain his position.
"The driver of car 11 also admitted the driver of car 28 was not unduly delayed when leaving the grid to start the formation lap.
"In this case the stewards decided to not award penalty points as the penalty is thesufficient.
"Car 28 was overtaken by car 11 during the formation lap, failed to re-establish his position before the first safety car line and then did not enter the pits as required under Article 38.3."
Classification:
Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
Pierre Gasly - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari
Nico Hulkenberg - Renault
Fernando Alonso - McLaren-Renault
Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Renault
Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
Esteban Ocon - Force India-Mercedes
Carlos Sainz - Renault
Charles Leclerc - Sauber-Ferrari
Romain Grosjean - Haas-Ferrari
Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes
Sergey Sirotkin - Williams-Mercedes
Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes
Brendon Hartley - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Did not finish the race and not classified: Kimi Raikkonen, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo
World Championship classification:
Sebastian Vettel - 50 points
Lewis Hamilton - 33 points
Valtteri Bottas - 22 points
Fernando Alonso - 16 points
Kimi Raikkonen - 15 points
Nico Hulkenberg - 14 points
Daniel Ricciardo - 12 points
Pierre Gasly - 12 points
Kevin Magnussen - 10 points
Max Verstappen - 8 points
Stoffel Vandoorne - 6 points
Marcus Ericsson - 2 points
Carlos Sainz - 1 point
Esteban Ocon - 1 point
Sergio Perez - 0 points
Charles Leclerc - 0 points
Romain Grosjean - 0 points
Lance Stroll - 0 points
Brendon Hartley - 0 points
Sergey Sirotkin - 0 points
Constructors' Championship classification:
Ferrari - 65 points
Mercedes - 55 points
McLaren-Renault - 22 points
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 20 points
Renault - 15 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 12 points
Haas-Ferrari - 10 points
Sauber-Ferrari - 2 points
Force India-Mercedes - 1 point
Williams-Mercedes - 0 points