Vettel back to winning ways; Iceman Kimi returns

By our Special Correspondent

Bahrain, 22 April 2012: Starting from pole, double world champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing team stormed to victory to win his 22nd GP title at the Bahrain Grand Prix, the fourth round of the Formula One World Championship at the Sakhir International Circuit here on Sunday. Sebastian Vettel who dominated the season last year won his last race at the Budh International Circuit, near Delhi in October last year. He made a stunning start and showed glimpses of his last year’s dominance take over-2-second lead by the end of the first lap. Lewis Hamilton, the current leader before going into the race finished 8th.

The win threw this year’s world championship open, as four different drivers from four different teams won the first four races this season. But the significance of Bahrain is the strong return by former world champion Kimi Raikkonen, who came seond for Team Lotus with compatriot Grosjean making it a double finish for the team which used to be called as Williams, till last year. Jenson Button of McLaren won the first race at Melbourne, Fernando Alonso was a surprise winner at the rain-hit Malysian GP on March 25 while Nico Roseberg notched his first Formula 1 title at China’s Shanghai circuit last Sunday.

Mark Webber earned his fourth consecutive fourth place to keep him in the hunt for an attack on the title. Nico Roseberg of Mercedes finishd 5th while Fernando Alonso of Ferrari took the seventh place while his teammate Felipe Massa was 9th. Force India’s second driver  Nico Hulkenberg finished in 12th position.

Sahara Force India’s Paul di Resta, withstood a late challenge from Fernando Alonso seconds before the finish, to take a well deserved 6th place which prompted Star Sports commentator and former Indian F1 driver Karun Chandhok to say that the Force have underperformed this season in the first three races after a strong showing in the season early testing. Narain Karthikeyan, the only Indian on the grid, was content to successfully finish the race with the HRT team, whose target is to see that both the cars finish the race until new updates for the car. Narain finished in 21nd place while his teammater Pedro de la Rosa was ahead at 20th place. The back-end team is struggling with cooling systems but saw great performance by Narain in rain during the third race at Sepang in Malaysia last month. Narain Karthikeyan: “The start today was good, but then the first few laps were quite tough because there was dust everywhere. I settled behind Pedro but I think I pushed too hard in the first stint because my tyres were dead very quickly. After my first pitstop, I improved a lot and from there my lap times were consistent. We did a four-stop strategy, which I think went very well, and in the end we were only half a second behind Pedro at the checkered flag. My race performan

The victory takes, Vettel to the top of the leader board in the Drivers’ championship with 53 points, four points aheadd of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull Racing team also takes the top spot in the Constructors’ championship with 101 points ahead of McLaren, who has 92 points. Lotus, with a double finish today, have 57 points for a third spot. Force India is in the eight place in the Constructors’ championship while Paul di Resta is in the 10th place in the Drivers’ list with 15 points.

In the 48th lap, Nico Roseberg overtook Paul di Resta for a 5th place and four laps later Jenson Button, mounting a challenge on Paul was forced to pit for a puncture which effectively put him out of points giving Michael Schumacher a last-ditch points place in tenth position.

The controversial race finally ended without any security issues. The only glitch, a minor one, was when Force India was forced to quit a session on Friday to make sure that team members reach their hotels safely before dark after they were caught up in an incident earlier when they were travelling in a private taxi. The next race will be in Spain on May 13 after a long break which teams are expected to use for testing and updates.

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