Lewis Hamilton managed to win, what can only be described as a thrillingly brilliant Bahrain Grand Prix 2015. Probably ranked as one of the most dramatic finishes to a race recently, the battle between the Mercedes and Ferrari was a nail-bitter with the action going down right to the last lap.Lewis Hamilton started from the pole to build up a comfortable lead followed by Nico Rosberg. However, on the second but last lap, while being hunted down furiously by Kimi Riakkonen, both the Mercedes cars lost their brakes under the high temperature and degradation. Kimi overtook a very disappointed Nico and went on to catch Lewis but the 6 second gap was enough for Lewis to limp across the chequered flag to win the race. Had there been more laps to the race, Kimi would have had Lewis. Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff said that the problem in both the cars were brakes which were caused by overheating, leading to failure of the brake-by-wire system.
Lewis keeps Kimi’s threat at bay to win Bahrain GP
Lewis has extended his overall driver’s championship points followed by Nico Rosberg in second who, with his third place at Bahrain, has managed to get ahead of Vettel in the points tally but one point. Sebastian was caught up behind Bottas to finish fifth.
Nico Rosberg was commented upon as being “Lewis-ish” on the track, pointing to his driving which saw him overtake Sebastian Vettel on three separate occasions during the race. Right at the start, Nico lost out to both the reds, pushing him down the order to fourth. He overtook both the reds to join his team mate to maintain a 1-2 for majority of the race. Ferrari performed the ‘undercut’, a pit stop strategy, to bring Sebastian Vettel from the third position to second on both the two stops, Vettel made but each time Nico managed to overtake the three time world champion with some aggressive moves. British racing legend commented on Nico Rosberg as the ‘new and improved Nico’ who under the floodlights at Bahrain surprised everyone with his new driving style.
Sebastian had a dismal run at Bahrain and looked out of form in the race. Vettel who was set for a podium finish, ran wide and damaged his front nose while fighting for track position against Rosberg, to pit for a third time making him slip to fifth position from which he could not recover. Before that he ran wide off the track couple of times. Ferrari has said they had no issue with the cars. Sebastian was not at his best while Kimi on the other hand had an outstanding race to finish second. Lewis said after the race, “Ferrari really gave us a run for the money.”Raikkonen said, “You are never happy when you finish second, but after a difficult start to the year I am pleased to get some result.” Ferrari kept Raikkonen out long in the middle section of the race on white medium tyres which probably cost him the top podium step.
Bottas soaked in all the pressure in fourth to keep Sebastian Vettel behind him for a good, 12 or more laps in the closing stages of the race. Lot of credit goes to him for picking up valuable points for William, with the team’s best race result yet this season and for driving flawlessly while keeping the red Ferrari of Vettel behind him. The Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo took sixth place as his engine exploded in the final lap right on the start-finish straight into a cloud of white smoke. Lotus’ Romain Grosjean finished seventh followed by Sergio Perez in eighth for Force India.
The McLaren of Jenson Button failed to start the race and had to retire without registering a single lap on his 100th appearance for the team while Alonso finished 11th. McLaren had made changes to their engine this weekend, adding more power and it seems to be working out for one of the two drivers. Alonso managed to get into Q2 for the first time this season and maintained a decent race pace. It is only time before they are back fighting for the podium finish.
Tags: Bahrain GP, Bahrain Grand Prix, F1, Ferrari, Formula One, Kimi Riakkonen, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Motorsport, Motorsports, Nico Rosberg
