2013 Bahrain Grand Prix – Commanding Vettel cruises to the top step

By Simon Wright

Sebastian Vettel was a dominant winner in the Bahrain desert

In a weekend where politics and sport clashed in an unstable region, Sebastian Vettel (pictured) produced some stability in Bahrain, and cruised to victory.

The world champion’s pace on raceday was simply too strong for his main rivals, finishing nine seconds clear of Kimi Raikkonen on the Sakhir circuit to win his second race of 2013.

It was the same podium result as the 2012 event, with Romain Grosjean pipping Scotland’s Paul di Resta to the final podium spot in an action-packed event.

Lewis Hamilton rescued fifth place from a trying afternoon for Mercedes GP, whilst Jenson Button endured a frustrating day which included some close calls battling with his McLaren team-mate Sergio Perez.

The 2012 race was overshadowed by the continued protests in the Bahrain region, which led to one protestor losing his life on the eve of the Grand Prix.  Although there were still demonstrations and minor skirmishes, the event did pass through relatively unscathed in 2013.  However, the long-term future of the Bahrain Grand Prix has to be under scrutiny.

Another organisation in trouble and have an insecure future in the sport is Pirelli, after tyres fell apart again, with four punctures or delaminating rubber during the weekend, leading to an emergency meeting between the teams and the Italian tyre supplier on Tuesday over possible changes in their construction for the remainder of the championship.

Away from the off-track squabbling and it was Nico Rosberg who took Mercedes’ second successive pole position on Saturday, ahead of Vettel and the Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Rosberg led away from the start, but Vettel lost out briefly to Alonso off the grid.  Into turn six on the opening circuit, he turned the tables with an outstanding pass on the Spaniard to reclaim second place.  Massa was involved in contact himself with Adrian Sutil, forcing the German into the pits with damage, wrecking his afternoon.

The Mercedes of Rosberg seemed hungrier than Luis Suarez was this afternoon, with its tyres chewing up after just three laps.  Vettel had little problem in overhauling his compatriot for the lead, and it wasn’t long before Alonso and di Resta got by too, despite Rosberg’s best efforts.

Alonso though was in trouble on lap seven, when television shots spotted his DRS system had failed.  The flap remained open out of the intended zones, and he was called into the pits for emergency treatment.  With a fresh set of tyres, he was on his way, but when passing Jules Bianchi a lap later – the same problem occurred.  Another trip through the pits finished his hopes of serious points, and started Ferrari’s luckless afternoon.

Despite having to pit earlier than expected on the harder tyre, Massa was right in contention for a podium position until he suffered a puncture on lap 18.  The crawl back to the pits was excruciating, and took the Brazilian out of the picture.  A sudden, second delaminating tyre later on was more alarming on the same side of the car (left-rear).  He eventually finished 15^th to register his first non-score since Germany 2012.

An aggressive undercut in the first round of stops pushed Mark Webber into second spot, but the fight for third was intense, with Rosberg and Grosjean fighting it out with the McLaren pair of Button and Perez. 

Things got close on several occasions between Perez and Button

The two Woking cars endured some bruising wheel-to-wheel action on several different occasions (pictured).  One scrap ended in contact on lap 30 whilst scrapping for fifth place.  Perez clipped the back of Button exiting turn four, and removed part of his front wing endplate.

A furious Button screamed out on the team radio: “He just hit me up the back, calm him down!”

The message didn’t seem to translate, as another battle led to dangerous contact at some 300 kilometres per hour and for an angry Brit to say in another message: “Moving across on the straight and wheel-banging; come on guys!”

The 2009 world champion, who finished an unhappy 10^th after making four pitstops, said to BBC afterwards: “I’m not used to driving down a straight and your team-mate wiggling his wheels at you and banging wheels at 300kph.

“That’s things you do in karting but grow out of.  Not the case with Checo.”

Back at the front and Vettel had no such issues, building up such an advantage that he could have parked the car and had a cup of tea before returning still ahead of the rest of the pack.

He could have two-stopped, but Red Bull took no chances and went for the three-stop route. 

That applied to the likes of Grosjean and Perez, but the abuse of the rear tyres meant Rosberg had no option but to four-stop like Button, and removed himself from the podium equation.

He summed up his frustration after coming home ninth to Planet-F1, saying: “We switched to a four-stop strategy at the end of my third stint but it wasn’t enough.

“We were using the rear tyres too much and at the end, I was really struggling and wasn’t able to push hard enough.”

Raikkonen and di Resta were able to two-stop, thanks to their smooth driving styles which were fully rewarded on the Sakhir circuit in Manama.

The ‘Iceman’ bounced back from a poor qualifying to finish second, and di Resta came within five laps of his maiden podium finish.

Unfortunately, the impressive Grosjean closed him down on fresh rubber and overwhelmed the Force India with ease into turn one to take third spot, and collect his second successive Bahrain rostrum.

Vettel eased through the final stages to record his 28^th career victory, moving him sixth on the all-time winners list, ahead of the great Sir Jackie Stewart.

He was amazed by the sudden extra pace, telling Sky Sports F1: “We managed the tyres just the way we thought.  Our strategy of saving the hard (tyres) until the final stint worked as expected.

“The pace was phenomenal, the car was very quick, and it just seemed to get better and better towards the end.  A really beautiful race where you could really push every single lap and we took care of the cars, so overall I’m very happy.”

The double podium finish for Lotus took them to second in the constructors’ championship, and a case of what might have been had Saturday gone better.  It was Grosjean’s first podium finish since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Di Resta matched his career best ever result, and Hamilton did well to recover from a gearbox penalty on Saturday, and a difficult opening half of the race that saw him struggle to get to grip with the car’s balance.

Webber ran out of grip in his 200^th event, and was passed by both the Mercedes and Perez on the final circuit, leaving the Aussie down in a disappointing seventh.  Without DRS, Alonso’s recovery drive to eighth was admirable followed by Rosberg and Button.

Pastor Maldonado narrowly missed out on Williams’ first points of the campaign in 11^th, and Charles Pic was an excellent 17^th for Caterham, outracing the Sauber of under-fire rookie Esteban Gutierrez fair and square.  Britain’s Max Chilton was 20^th on his 22^nd birthday.

After four events, Vettel has a 10-point lead over Raikkonen and Red Bull already have complete control of the constructors’ battle.  F1 takes a three-week break before the circus arrives in Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix and the start of the European leg of the 2013 championship.

The message from Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain was loud and clear though: ‘Catch me if you can!’

	2013 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX RESULT
Pos	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Reason	Grid
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault	57	1hr 36min 00secs	2
2	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault	57	+9.1secs	8
3	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	57	+19.5secs	11
4	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes	57	+21.7secs	5
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes GP	57	+35.2secs	9
6	Sergio Perez	McLaren Mercedes	57	+35.9secs	12
7	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault	57	+37.2secs	7
8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	57	+37.5secs	3
9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	57	+41.1secs	1
10	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	57	+41.6secs	10
11	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault	57	+1min 06.4secs	17
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber Ferrari	57	+1min 12.9secs	14
13	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	57	+1min 16.7secs	6
14	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault	57	+1min 21.5secs	15
15	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	57	+1min 26.3secs	4
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	56	1 Lap	13
17	Charles Pic	Caterham Renault	56	1 Lap	18
18	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber Ferrari	56	1 Lap	22
19	Jules Bianchi	Marussia Cosworth	56	1 Lap	19
20	Max Chilton	Marussia Cosworth	56	1 Lap	21
21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault	55	2 Laps	20
R	Jean-Eric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari	16	Accident Damage	16

Drivers’ Championship after 4 rounds: 1. Sebastian Vettel 77, 2. Kimi Raikkonen 67, 3. Lewis Hamilton 50, 4. Fernando Alonso 47, 5. Mark Webber 32, 6. Felipe Massa 30, 7. Romain Grosjean 26, 8. Paul di Resta 20, 9. Nico Rosberg 14, 10. Jenson Button 13, 11. Sergio Perez 10, 12. Daniel Ricciardo 6, 13. Adrian Sutil 6, 14. Nico Hulkenberg 5, 15. Jean-Eric Vergne 1

Constructors’ Championship after 4 rounds: 1. Red Bull Racing 109, 2. Lotus 93, 3. Ferrari 77, 4. Mercedes GP 64, 5. Force India 26, 6. McLaren 23, 7. Scuderia Toro Rosso 7, 8. Sauber 5

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