Hamilton wins Bahrain GP; Kimi Raikkonen pushes Rosberg to third

Sakhir, 19 April 2015: Reigning World Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton of England won a comfortable race in his Mercedes to notch up the third win of the season from four starts at the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix here on Sunday night. Roseberg, in his 100 GP, could only finish third behind Raikkonen.

The two time world champi

on had a facile win but not before a challenge mounted by Ferrari, Hamilton’s teammate and main rival in the drivers’ championship was pushed to third place with just two laps to go as Kimi Raikkonen made a late dash covering over 5 seconds in the last few laps and a mistake from Rosberg who went off the road, made the overtaking easy for the iceman, who ran oiut of laps to attack Hamilton. The champion had issue with his brakes but with a comfortable 5-second margin befoe the last lap, he eased past the chequered flag to lead the championship table.

Answering a question from Sir Jackie Stewart, a three-time F1 World Champ of yesteryears on the podium, Hamilton said: “The Ferraris gave us a real good run for our money but fortunately we were able to keep it together. A massive thanks to everyone.”

However, his teammate who lost his position to Raikkonen at the start managed to overtake both the Ferraris early in the race. “The overtaking was enjoyable, I liked that a lot,” Rosberg mused. “And then I lost my brakes unfortunately two laps from the end, and that lost me the position to Kimi.”

Kimi, nicknamed as iceman, gave a cool answer on the podium to a short question: “Kimi, happy?”

“Obviously you’re never happy when you’re second, but I’m a bit pleased to get a better result. But we’re looking for a bit better results too.”

Sebastian Vettel, who is the only driver to beat Hamilton this season, with a win in the second race at Malaysia, was in contention for the second place till mid-way, but a mistake saw him take an excursion and hurt his chances as he had to pit for a nose change which pushed him back to 5th place behind Valtteri Bottas of Williams.

Bottas staved off the challenge till the end and finished fourth ahead of Vettel.

Sahara Force India Sergio Peraz finisehd 8th to get four valuable points for Force India who began in points in Australia but then went without any in the next three races. The team is awaiting major updates and will mount a challenge only fraom the Austrian race. Romain Grosjean of Lotus was seventh ahead of Perez.

Both Red Bulls scored points with Daniel Ricciardo in 6th and Daniil Kvyat in 9th. Ricciardo kept his record of scoring points in every race this year. Felipe Massa in the other Williams snatched the last point in 10th.

ends/India in F1 notes