Nico Rosberg won his fifth consecutive race and his second of the 2016 season as he dominated the Bahrain Grand Prix following problems for two of his three closest rivals.
The action began before the race had even begun as third-placed man on the grid Sebastian Vettel failed to even complete the formation lap. The Ferrari driver suffered an engine failure on the back straight and rolled to a halt metres before the penultimate corner as Lewis Hamilton took his pole position grid slot.
As the five red lights extinguished, Hamilton got a mediocre start and dropped behind team-mate Rosberg into second position.
The slow start caused further trouble for Hamilton as Williams’ Valtteri Bottas, who came through from sixth to third after a great start, made contact with the Mercedes at Turn 1, damaging his and Hamilton’s front-wings. Bottas would late be hit with a drive-through penalty.
That dropped the pole sitter down to seventh whilst Bottas was able to continue, losing just one place to team-mate Felipe Massa who slotted in second behind Rosberg who immediately opened up a healthy lead.
There was further contact down the grid as on the second lap Force India’s Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz came together, also at Turn 1. Whilst Perez escaped with half his front-wing still intact, Sainz was forced to limp back to the pits with a right-rear puncture.
In the opening lap carnage Kimi Raikkonen slotted in behind Bottas for third, but quickly dispatched his fellow Finn, pushing the Williams driver back into the grasps of Hamilton who had gradually worked his way back through the field and eventually got passed Bottas to claim third.
Meanwhile Jenson Button retired with an ERS failure, pulling off circuit and bringing an end to his race. The second McLaren of Stoffel Vandoorne has better luck. The stand-in rookie made some great passes to eventually finish tenth to take McLaren’s first point for the season.
Esteban Gutierrez failed to finish his second race in a row for Haas, becoming the fourth retirement alongside the non-starting Vettel, Renault’s Jolyon Palmer and Button.
A mix of strategies converged and the order began to settle over the final 15 or so laps, but some close battles continued to break out up and down the grid, particularly amongst the sole Renault of Kevin Magnussen, the Sauber pair and Manor’s Pascal Wehrlein.
Come the checkered flag on lap 57, Rosberg crossed the line with a ten second lead to Raikkonen, whilst Hamilton was a further 19 seconds back, recovering from a dreadful start – his second of the season.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo drove a clean race to finish fourth, beating the Haas of Romain Grosjean who went one better than the team’s debut finish in Australia to take home ten more points.
Max Verstappen finished sixth ahead of Massa, Daniil Kvyat and Bottas with Vandoorne completing the top ten.
