Bahrain Grand Prix 2015: Winners and Losers from Sakhir Race
With victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton secured his third win in four races in the 2015 Formula One season.
The two-time world champion's latest win from pole position has seen Hamilton extend his lead in the drivers' standings to almost 30 points, with the British driver forced to work hard at the Sakhir circuit.
Sebastian Vettel, the only other driver to win a race so far this year, was expected to lead the challenge against Hamilton.
But an off-day for the four-time title winner allowed the No. 2 drivers for Ferrari and Mercedes, Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg, to remind everyone—and perhaps even themselves—of their qualities.
In a night race that saw Sergio Perez offer renewed hope to Force India and Scuderia Toro Rosso and McLaren-Honda encounter more problems, here are the main winners and losers of the Bahrain GP.
Winner: Lewis Hamilton
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The Bahrain Grand Prix was the sort of race which would have faded away from Lewis Hamilton in years and weeks gone by.
The two-time world champion is better than anyone when there's a pure him-against-me fight on track; it's when things get complicated that strategy becomes the aim of the game and the true picture of the race doesn't become clear until late on, when Hamilton has stumbled in the past.
Indeed, his fragility in this area was highlighted as recently as the Malaysian GP, the only event he has failed to win this season, where he became ever more emotional as the race went on.
Bahrain presented another potential banana skin, another race where his performance advantage could have gone unrewarded, but this Lewis Hamilton was almost unrecognisable from the Lewis Hamilton of Sepang.
Although his lead over the chasing pack, according to Sky Sports' James Galloway, was never in excess of six seconds, Hamilton retained his calm and allowed the race to play out accordingly, never appearing unruffled despite a slow pit stop eradicating his early advantage.
The British driver's handling of his car's braking problems on the final lap, when he was still vulnerable after all that hard work, was most impressive as he refused to panic, coasting to the chequered flag.
Hamilton entered Bahrain GP with the most to lose, but now with a 27-point lead in the drivers' championship, he gained more than anyone with another pole-to-flag win.
Loser: Sebastian Vettel
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Sebastian Vettel was, in the eyes of many, the one to watch in the Bahrain Grand Prix given Ferrari's ability to preserve their tyres more effectively than Mercedes.
The four-time world champion, however, attracted attention for all the wrong reasons as a scruffy performance saw the race slip away from him.
A rather average start in contrast to Lewis Hamilton's getaway meant the German's hopes of snatching the lead at the first corner—always a possibility from second on the grid at Sakhir—were dashed with a number of errors over the course of the race proving costly.
Thrice Vettel ran wide under braking, and twice Nico Rosberg took advantage as Vettel was forced to pit for a new front wing after going off the track at the final turn on Lap 35.
He was the odd one out in the Mercedes-Ferrari battle, failing to pass Valtteri Bottas for fourth despite hounding the Williams driver in the latter stages.
Vettel's admission to Sky Sports' Pete Gill after the race that he "probably tried a bit too hard" was surprising after his cool, calm triumph in Malaysia, where instead of chasing the win he let victory find him.
Winner: Nico Rosberg
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That was more like it, wasn't it?
Arguably the driver of the day, Nico Rosberg produced his strongest showing since mid-2014 in Bahrain with a performance that was uncharacteristic of last year's championship runner-up.
You feared the worst when the German was punted down to fourth on the first lap, but that only served to provoke Rosberg into action.
Until now regarded as a relatively weak racer, Rosberg was brave and decisive in passing the Ferraris, shoving Sebastian Vettel out of the way at Turn 1 on Lap 16 and pressurising his countryman into a mistake on more than one occasion.
Also notable was his lack of chitchat over the pit-to-car intercom, with Radio Rosberg very much a one-way system for much of the grand prix as the German focused on what mattered: getting his season back on track.
Although unfortunate to lose second place when Mercedes' brake issues forced him wide at Turn 1 on the penultimate lap, a new-and-improved Rosberg did just that in Bahrain.
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Loser: Toro Rosso
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Scuderia Toro Rosso and its drivers, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, have been among the stars of the season so far but failed to shine in Bahrain as those familiar reliability gremlins returned.
Prior to retiring with what he told the team's official website was "an electrical issue," wonder-boy Verstappen performed like a mere mortal for the first time in his Formula One career across the Sakhir weekend, finishing at the bottom of the Q2 time sheets and making contact with Pastor Maldonado early on.
Although Sainz, meanwhile, managed to start inside the top 10, the Spaniard received a five-second time penalty before the grand prix had even begun for travelling too slowly on the pre-race lap to the grid and was forced to pull over on Lap 30 due to a loose wheel.
Despite making a huge impression already this season, Verstappen has now failed to reach the chequered flag in three of the four races. Meanwhile, this was not the first time a troublesome pit stop has ruined a race for Sainz, with the 20-year-old losing positions in the season-opening Australian GP.
Like last year, Toro Rosso have built a decent car, but the Italian team won't be able to realise its potential if the STR10 can't reach the finish line.
Winner: Kimi Raikkonen
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Having failed to reach the podium since the Korean Grand Prix of 2013, Kimi Raikkonen needed this result.
The 2007 world champion had been the outsider in the battle between Mercedes and Ferrari at the start of 2015, making fourth position his own in recent weeks, but a return to the podium almost coincided with a return to winning ways for Raikkonen in Bahrain.
A second excellent start in the space of seven days did not quite lay the foundations for the Finn's run to second place, but the team's decision to use the soft-compound tyres for the final stint—against their driver's wishes—did.
After running under the radar once again for two-thirds of the race, Raikkonen came alive in typical fashion as the grand prix edged toward its conclusion, reeling in the Mercedes at a vast rate of knots.
The likelihood is that Raikkonen would have passed Nico Rosberg for the runner-up spot regardless of the German's late braking problems, but it could be argued the team's failure to pit Kimi earlier cost Ferrari the chance of claiming a second victory of the season.
For the second weekend running, he was faster than Vettel on race day, and in a week when Maurizio Arrivabene, the Ferrari team principal, challenged his driver to earn a contract extension for 2016, per the MailOnline's Ian Parkes, Raikkonen offered the perfect response.
Loser: McLaren-Honda
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McLaren-Honda seemed to have made a step forward in China when both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button finished the race, but the team once again went two steps back in Bahrain.
Button, a man whose career has been a tale of ups and downs, had one of the worst weekends of his 16-year career at Sakhir as mechanical problems crippled his MP4-30, leaving the 2009 world champion unable to participate in qualifying and the race.
As his car sat mournfully in the garage, Button spent his evening delivering a live commentary of the race on Twitter.
And he might have been slightly encouraged by what he saw from Alonso, who again acted as an irritant, lingering in the mirrors of faster cars and even unlapping himself from his 2014 Ferrari team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, at one stage.
The Spaniard ultimately finished 11th, equalling the team's best result of the season, but it would have been unjust if McLaren had registered their first points of 2015 on another horrendous weekend.
Winner: Sergio Perez
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Up until the Bahrain Grand Prix, Sergio Perez was among the worst performers of the 2015 season thus far.
Avoidable collisions with Jenson Button and Romain Grosjean in Australia and Malaysia were worrying signs after the Mexican went some way toward recovering his reputation in 2014, with Perez telling the Press Association's Ian Parkes (via the Daily Mail) of his struggles to "keep motivated" at an uncompetitive Force India.
But Perez has always tended to perform well at Sakhir. He recorded a strong sixth place in that miserable season with McLaren in 2013 and, of course, took Force India's second-ever podium finish a year ago.
We should have known then that Perez would return to form in Bahrain and did so by producing what he referred to on the team's official website as "one of my best races."
Tyre degradation has been one of the biggest vices of Force India's interim VJM08 car this season.
And while Nico Hulkenberg was forced to make three pit stops en route to 13th, Perez—renowned for his tyre-management skills and feather-like application of the throttle—utilised a two-stop strategy and stayed out of trouble to finish eighth.
After a testing start to the year, let's hope those four points, achieved against the odds, will return some inspiration to both drivers and team.
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