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Wonderful win for Rosberg in Bahrain

Nico Rosberg won his 5th race in a row, 2nd this season, showing he’s a strong candidate for the World Championship this year. Kimi Räikkönen finished 2nd ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who had another eventful start.

The race had an early ending for Sebastian Vettel, since his engine broke during the formation lap. The start was very chaotic, with Valtteri Bottas getting up to 3rd but colliding with Hamilton on the first corner. The current World Champion went down to 9th while Bottas got a penalty. Rosberg led the race ahead of Massa, Bottas, Ricciardo and Räikkönen. Carlos Sainz made contact with Sergio Pérez, getting a puncture and breaking the Mexican’s front wing. Meanwhile, Palmer, Gutiérrez and Button had to retire for mechanical problems.

The tyre strategy with three compounds available offered a wide range of options. For their second stint, Rosberg, Räikkönen and Ricciardo chose the soft, while Hamilton and Massa went for the medium. On lap 20, the top 10 was: Rosberg, Räikkönen, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Grosjean (supersoft), Verstappen, Massa, Vandoorne, Bottas and Kvyat.

Ricciardo was the first one to stop again and continued with the soft compound. He came out behind Bottas and passed him pretty quickly. Verstappen changed his softs for mediums and came out on P10. Grosjean chose a three pit stop strategy with another supersoft set on P8. Hamilton decided to copy Grosjean and changed his mediums to supersofts, just as Räikkönen and Rosberg did with his softs.

Finally, Rosberg did a perfect race, dominating from beginning to end and adapting the strategy to the circumstances. Kimi Räikkönen couldn’t catch the Mercedes ahead but was able to keep Hamilton behind. Ricciardo was 4th for the second race in a row, while his teammate Kvyat managed to climb up to 7th after starting on 15th. Grosjean did a wonderful race, this time with a lot of fights on track, and showed the potential Haas have by finishing 5th. Verstappen finished 6th for Toro Rosso, while the Williams drivers finished in a disappointing 8th for Massa and 9th for Bottas after being 2nd and 3rd in the first corner. Stoffel Vandoorne completed the points on his debut race for McLaren. Magnussen, Ericsson, Wehrlein and Nasr had some wonderful battles on track and finished P11 to P14. The Force India only managed to finish ahead of Haryanto, with Hülkenberg ahead of Pérez.

Pos. Car Driver Team
1 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG
2 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari
3 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG
4 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing
5 8 Romain Grosjean Haas F1 Team
6 33 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso
7 26 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull Racing
8 19 Felipe Massa Williams
9 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams
10 47 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren
11 20 Kevin Magnussen Renault Sport F1 Team
12 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber
13 94 Pascal Wehrlein Manor F1 Team
14 12 Felipe Nasr Sauber
15 27 Nico Hülkenberg Force India
16 11 Sergio Pérez Force India
17 88 Rio Haryanto Manor F1 Team
OUT 55 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso
OUT 21 Esteban Gutiérrez Haas F1 Team
OUT 22 Jenson Button McLaren
OUT 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
OUT 30 Jolyon Palmer Renault Sport F1 Team