After yet another crowd-pleaser in Bahrain, Nico Rosberg came out on top, leading the way from lights to flag whilst his team-mate and championship rival was left to dwell on what might have been after a first corner collision with Valtteri Bottas.
Behind Rosberg was a whole host of drivers contending for the ‘driver of the day’ award, chief among which was Kimi Raikkonen who came home second, flying the flag for Ferrari after Vettel registered a DNS through no fault of his own.
Lower down the order was Stoffel Vandoorne, the McLaren super-sub who scored points on his debut, joining the star-studded club of various other drivers to have done so before him, including modern day winners such as Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Romain Grosjean took Haas’s points total up to 18 having come home in fifth, utilising an aggressive strategy in which he didn’t use the medium compound tyre and provided some entertaining overtaking manoeuvres, such as the one around the outside of Felipe Massa into turn one in the latter stages.
