Alonso leads inherited one-two victory for Ferrari in Bahrain
Alonso began his Ferrari career with a win in the Kingdom of Bahrain
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Sunday, 14, Mar 2010 07:02
By Adam Leveridge
Fernando Alonso led a Ferrari one-two victory in his first race for the Maranello-based outfit in the opening grand prix of the 2010 formula one season in Bahrain.
Lewis Hamilton fought hard to bring his McLaren home in the final podium position, ahead of Sebastian Vettel who was led the race until he was struck by mechanical problems.
The Red Bull driver led the way from pole position, with the Ferrari pairing of Massa and Alonso covering the next two positions from Hamilton in the first of the McLarens.
As the field negotiated turn one, Webber's RB6 sprayed a blue smoke screen across the track because of an overfilled oil tanks and dropped two positions down to eighth place, behind Button.
Meanwhile, just behind the Australian, carnage ensued when the Force India's made contact with each other and Robert Kubica in the Renault, causing the Pole and Adrian Sutil to drop down to the back end of the grid.
At the end of the first lap of 2010, Vettel had a two-second buffer between himself and Alonso in second place and his Red Bull team mate Webber began to make progress back up the order, finding himself in seventh place again on lap two, having re-passed Button.
All three of the new outfits were hoping to see the chequered flag, to get as much mileage under their belts as possible.
However, Karun Chandhok became the first retirement of the afternoon when his Hispania Racing (HRT) car was launched off the circuit by a bump with less than two laps on the board.
Nico Hulkenburg in the Williams was the next to have an off on lap three when he failed to control a tank slapper and he was immediately followed off the track by Lucas di Grassi in the Virgin, who retired with recurring hydraulic problems.
Before the grand prix, Ross Brawn said Mercedes GP would be running reactive strategies now the refueling ban is in force, responding instantly to different scenarios as the race unfolds.
By lap seven, Hamilton was reporting wear on his soft compound tyres, but was able to reach the gearbox of Rosberg's Mercedes by lap 13.
This forced McLaren to adopt a reactive strategy and they decided to bring Hamilton in for his first stop on lap 15 in an attempt to leapfrog Rosberg and get the 2008 world champion back out in clean air.
However, Mercedes tried to cover McLaren by calling in Schumacher, who was immediately behind Hamilton on the track, matching the young Briton's pace.
Rosberg then appeared in the pits for his first stop on lap 16, although McLaren's quick-thinking paid off as Rosberg had to be held in his pit box while Button cruised past for his first stop of the afternoon, allowing Hamilton to move up into a provisional fourth place, but sixth on track behind Rubens Barrichello.
The 24-year old then went on the attack, recording the race's fastest lap soon after his stop, before scything his way past the Brazilian, who was yet to stop, on lap 19 to reclaim fifth place.
At half distance, the race calmed, with Vettel still holding the lead with a gap of 2.7 seconds over Alonso in second place and 4.3 over third placed man Massa, with all three lapping pretty consistently.
But with 19 laps to go, Alonso picked up the pace by setting the first sub two-minute lap of the race, to bring the gap to Vettel down to 1.3 seconds.
However, Alonso's pace fell away dramatically as his engine temperature rose, forcing the Spaniard to tweak the engine revs and sit outside of the turbulent air from Vettel's car.
Ferrari, despite having the best outright pace of all the teams on the grid throughout free practice and qualifying, changed the engines in both their cars before the start of the race and, with only eight engines available to them for the whole season, these early engine changes do not bode well for the Maranello-based team for the rest of the year.
There was to be yet another twist in the tale of the Bahrain grand prix though when Vettel reported a loss of power due to a suspected crack in his exhaust on lap 34.
The young German held on for as long as possible but was a sitting duck along the straights, both Alonso and Massa picking him off to make it a Ferrari one-two. And it wasn't long before Hamilton in fourth was on the Red Bull's gearbox, inheriting the final podium place from Vettel with 12 laps to go.
Despite a challenge from Rosberg in the closing laps of the race, Vettel did however manage to hold on to fourth place.
Meanwhile, down in sixth place, Michael Schumacher managed to fend off a late charge from Button and Webber, who had been in a race long battle, ahead of Liuzzi and Barrichello in the final two points-scoring positions.