Lewis today took the 107th top three finish of his Formula One career in P2. Valtteri sealed a double podium for the team in P3. Lewis (61) is P2 in the Drivers' Championship, seven points behind Sebastian Vettel (68) in P1.
Valtteri (38) is P3, 23 points behind Lewis and four in front of Kimi Raikkonen (34) in P4. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport (99) trail Ferrari (102) by three points in the Constructors' Championship.
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport: Today's race reminded us once again that we are in a very different competitive situation this year, racing against Ferrari - and I am confident that this is a challenge we will rise to as one team. After a winter of massive regulation change, we have been in the hunt for race wins at every weekend and that is the big positive for us. But today was another reminder that we need to get everything right in order to deliver. That's a challenge we relish as sportsmen and women. Ultimately, this was a day of marginal losses which cost us the win - however, as we saw particularly with Lewis, the pace was there in the car at the times when we were able to extract it. Our first loss came on the grid when a generator failure left Valtteri with too high starting pressures; that limited his pace in the opening stint, meaning we could not open a gap to the field and, with Lewis running behind Vettel, our strategic choices were pretty limited. We were on the back foot and then Ferrari played the undercut perfectly to come out ahead. We got lucky with the Safety Car which gave us an opportunity to recover but a problem with the wheel guns meant we lost time and positions with both cars. With the cars running different tyre compounds, we had to make the tough unpopular call for Valtteri to let Lewis pass; it's not something we like to do but, when the moment comes that the race win is in danger, we will always do what we need to in order to get it. After that, we offset Lewis' strategy as much as possible to give him the chance of closing down Sebastian in the final laps, but after he had served the five-second penalty, it left him with too much to do. We leave Bahrain with a lot more learning and still more work to do, in order to perform at our best and convert the car's speed into race wins.
James Allison, Technical Director: It's always disappointing when you don't convert your grid positions into a result. We had a handful of small setbacks which collectively cost us. In a season where the battle is very close on race day, these errors meant that we didn't manage to convert our opportunities into the victory that we'd hoped for. But the important thing is that the pace is there in the car and now we're just looking forward to getting to the next race in Russia and the opportunity to make good on what we didn't manage to achieve tonight.
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "After an exciting opening to the race up to the first pit stops, our cars looked in good contention with Max having made a good start. He managed to move up a couple of places and we pitted reasonably early for an undercut but unfortunately shortly after a rear brake pressure issue caused his immediate retirement which brought out the safety car. We stopped Daniel under the safety car but lost some time behind Lewis as he deliberately slowed in the pit lane for which he was later penalized. Nonetheless we were still able to get out ahead of him and at that stage for the restart we were third on the road. It became very quickly apparent that Daniel struggled to warm up the soft tyre compared to our competitors and dropped several places before recovering one against Massa. With the final stint on the supersoft tyre unfortunately fifth place was the best that we could achieve today."
{b}Maurizio Arrivabene:{/b} Today's victory was an important one, achieved thanks to the great efforts of all the guys at the track and back in Maranello. For the whole weekend, the team demonstrated courage, determination and a little bit of madness. This is all part of our DNA, characteristics which 70 years ago saw the birth of Ferrari. Courage and determination were needed to tackle a weekend like this, in which we expected to encounter a few difficulties in qualifying, which is why, based on good long run data on Friday, we prepared as well as possible for the race. In order to do this you also need to use some madness... Sebastian drove a really great race, demonstrating once again all his class. Kimi was caught up in traffic at the start and then he certainly wasn't helped by the arrival of the Safety Car. The SF70H proved itself to be strong also in these conditions, at a track which requires above all power and good traction. The tyres worked very well, which allowed us to fully exploit our very good strategy. And now it's time to concentrate on the next round of the World Championship, the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi.
{b}Mattia Binotto:{/b} It wasn't an easy weekend, because, as qualifying showed, Mercedes still has the upper hand on Saturdays and definitely more so here than in the previous two races. That means we must go through a lot of data and perhaps this will help us become stronger in the future. We are very happy about the race result: we definitely showed that today we had more speed than the Mercedes, especially on the Qualifying tyres. This can be seen by the fact that we have less tyre wear than our main competitors.
Sahara Force India moved up to fourth place in the championship after Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon finished in seventh and tenth places in today's Bahrain Grand Prix.
Robert Fernley: "After a challenging qualifying session it's very satisfying to get both cars into the points today. The team made all the right calls and Sergio and Esteban didn't put a wheel out of place. Sergio was fortunate with the timing of the safety car, while Esteban lost ground, but that's just the luck of the draw with a safety car. Scoring seven points is a fantastic result and moves us up to fourth place in the championship. We are racing well, taking our opportunities and scoring important points. It's a solid start to our season and gives us a good base to build on as we improve the VJM10 over the coming races."
Felipe Massa finished sixth in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Lance Stroll's race came to an early conclusion on lap 12 after being hit by Sainz.
Both cars started the race on the supersoft tyre. Felipe gained several positions to jump up to P6, while Lance fell to P14.
Lance was closing in on Palmer before pitting for a new set of soft tyres on lap nine. He rejoined in P18 and set the fastest lap of the race before the incident with Sainz.
Felipe ran as high as fourth after he pitted during the safety car for a new set of soft tyres and passed Ricciardo on the restart.
Raikkonen and Ricciardo both managed to get back ahead of Felipe into Turn 1, which moved him back down to sixth, where he finished 8.2s ahead of Perez.
Felipe moves up to seventh in the Drivers' Championship, whilst Williams moves up to fifth in the Constructors' Championship.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It was a great day for Felipe, he drove extremely well. He had a good clean start, made some places and defended well. Although, ultimately, we couldn't cling on to fourth, but it was a really great drive from him to finish sixth. On Lance's side, he started 12th but fell to 14th on the opening lap. We boxed him early, which had always been our plan because we had the tyres to do it, however it was initiated by a minor flat-spot. On his second stint he was actually setting a very good pace. Unfortunately, he was caught out by Sainz who was exiting the pits. It's a real shame, as the collision brought his race to a premature end. However, I'm sure he'll come back stronger in Russia. Overall it was a great job by the team, we're now up to fifth in the Constructors' Championship and we're looking forward to Russia. Finally, Happy 75th Birthday to Frank!
The Bahrain Grand Prix started in frustrating fashion for the McLaren-Honda team, when a water-pressure issue was detected in the #2 car of Stoffel Vandoorne on the way to the grid. The problem could not be fixed in time, and the team had no choice but to remove the car from the grid. Stoffel did not therefore start the race.
On the opposite side of the garage, Fernando made a good start - maintaining his starting position - and took full advantage of the Safety Car to pit on lap 13. By lap 19 he had battled his way up to 11th position. He enjoyed some exciting dices with the cars around him and was running in 12th position for the final third of the race. Two laps from the end, however, he reported that he felt something unusual from the cockpit, so the team elected to retire his car as a precaution following the reliability issues that have occurred throughout the weekend so far. The issue is now under investigation.
Eric Boullier: "Well, what can I say? Fernando failed to finish, and Stoffel failed even to start. So today was a bad day for McLaren-Honda: there's no point pretending otherwise.
"Stoffel's weekend went from bad to worse when, on the parade lap, his power unit suffered a water-pressure issue, having already sustained MGU-H damage on Friday. As a result of today's failure, we had no choice but to abort his start. But, despite being understandably frustrated and upset by a series of problems that had ruined his weekend, none of them his fault, he joined our engineers in the garage to offer his advice and support. He's a great lad.
"Fernando drove his usual gutsy race, driving the wheels off his MCL32 despite its straight-line speed deficiency, until he felt something wrong on lap 55. In light of all the problems we'd already had this weekend, we then agreed to retire his car. We'll now investigate what that problem was.
"We're disappointed to have put up such a disappointing performance for our Bahraini hosts, whose home Grand Prix was yet again both superbly organised and excitingly dramatic. The Bahrain International Circuit has now hosted 13 Grands Prix, and over that time it's become one of the Formula 1 circus's favourite venues."
Yusuke Hasegawa: "We've had yet another disappointing day today. We detected a water-pressure issue with Stoffel's PU just before the start of the race, so we took the difficult decision to not start the race. The issue is still under investigation, but we suspect that it's the same as we had on Friday.
"Despite difficult circumstances, Fernando had a better race, with some impressive overtaking manoeuvres. Unfortunately, with just two laps to go, he felt something wrong with the car and we had to retire it.
"Now we have two days of testing here in Bahrain. Our aim for this will be to improve PU reliability as well as performance, and to test some updated parts. I hope we'll see steps forward during the test."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "Bahrain turned out to be quite a difficult weekend for us. The negatives started already on Friday, with a broken exhaust on Carlos' car which meant we had to change all the wiring looms and the complete environment of the exhaust system. On Saturday, during his very fast qualifying lap, he also had to stop the car on track because of a Power Unit issue. Regarding the race, Carlos' start was good and he was able to overtake a few cars. Unfortunately, he had a collision with Stroll, which meant that he could not finish the race. Regarding Daniil, he lost many positions during the first lap and dropped back. After that, he drove a solid race, taking part in some good fights, but unfortunately he couldn't finish within the points. We now have to prepare everything in the best possible way for the next race in Sochi in order to fight back and score some points."
For the second straight race, Haas F1 Team scored a point-paying result as driver Romain Grosjean delivered an eighth-place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.
Grosjean started ninth in the 57-lap race around the 5.412-kilometer (3.363-mile), 15-turn track and held his position amid the always chaotic start, a lap-16 restart and two pit stops. After his final stop at the end of lap 32 where Grosjean swapped his Pirelli P Zero Red supersoft tires for a new set of Yellow softs, he used the fresh rubber to overtake the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat for eighth on lap 38. Grosjean maintained the spot through the checkered flag to take his first point-scoring finish of the year.
Teammate Kevin Magnussen didn't have the opportunity to vie for points. After rising from his 20th-place starting spot to 15th, Magnussen's race ended after eight laps when an electronics issue cut his car's power supply, forcing him to pull off at turn eight. Magnussen finished eighth the week before in the Chinese Grand Prix.
Grosjean's eighth-place effort was his fifth top-10 finish in six career Formula One starts at Bahrain. Grosjean finished fifth in last year's Bahrain Grand Prix for what remains Haas F1 Team's best result in 24 Formula One races.
Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix by 6.660 seconds over Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton to earn his second victory of 2017. Vettel won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and after three races the Scuderia Ferrari pilot leads the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship by seven points over Hamilton. This was Vettel's 44th career Formula One victory and his third at Bahrain, with his last win in Sakhir coming in 2013 when he drove for Red Bull.
Three rounds into the 20-race Formula One schedule, Haas F1 Team remains seventh in the constructor standings with eight points, four behind sixth-place Toro Rosso and six ahead of eighth-place Renault. Grosjean and Magnussen are tied for 10th in the driver standings with four points apiece.
Formula One takes a weekend off before returning to action April 28-30 for the Russian Grand Prix at the Sochi Autodrom.
Guenther Steiner: "It was a bittersweet race with one driver in the points and one with a DNF (Did Not Finish). Kevin had a problem with his electronics. We don't know yet what it is. The car just switched off and he had to park it. Romain fought a good battle. We know where we are. We were not strong enough for Perez (Force India), but we were good enough to beat Hulkenberg (Renault). It's a tight battle and, again, we got four points from here."
Renault Sport Formula One Team scored its first points of 2017 after a hard-fought Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit. Despite continued positive progress with top ten qualifying performances from Nico Hülkenberg and Jolyon Palmer on Saturday, both drivers finished lower than they started in the 57-lap race as they struggled with race pace. Nico crossed the finish line in ninth position and Jolyon finished thirteenth, both using two-stop strategies.
Nico started the race in P7 on his qualifying Supersoft tyres, changing to a set of fresh Soft tyres on lap 13 under the Safety Car, then a set of scrubbed Supersoft tyres on lap 36.
Jolyon started the race from P10 on his qualifying Supersoft tyres, changing to a new set of Softs on lap 13 under the Safety Car, then a set of scrubbed Supersofts on lap 37.
{b}Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director:{/b} "Today we scored our first points with another strong race from Nico. We may have lost one position relative to the optimum strategy, but the most important aspect for us is to understand why there is such a difference between our Saturday qualifying performance and our Sunday race pace. Jo had a more difficult Grand Prix, so we also need to understand in detail why he struggled especially after qualifying in the top ten for the first time yesterday. Fortunately, this week's test comes at a perfect time to further our understanding on the issues that are now well identified, as well as to test first major upgrades of a season that will see a lot of progress and improvement."
The Sauber F1 Team finished the Bahrain Grand Prix in P11 with Pascal Wehrlein. Marcus Ericsson was unlucky - he had to retire just a couple of laps before the end of the race due to a gearbox failure. On the Bahrain International Circuit the drivers were on different strategies with their Sauber C36-Ferrari.
After the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first two days of in-season testing will take place from the 18th to 19th April on the Bahrain International Circuit. Ericsson will be at the wheel of the Sauber C36-Ferrari on Tuesday, while Wehrlein will drive the car on Wednesday.
Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "A reasonable result, as we knew it would have been a difficult race. We decided beforehand to choose different strategies in order to benefit from a one-stop-strategy. Marcus was the only driver starting on soft tyres. Unfortunately, he was not able to finish the race due to a gearbox failure just a couple of laps before the chequered flag. Pascal was luckier - he put in a good performance finishing the race in P11."
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix with a two-stop strategy, from the second row of the grid. All the drivers apart from Sauber's Pascal Wehrlein stopped twice, while his team mate Marcus Ericsson was the only driver to begin the race on the soft tyre. In the warm conditions of the evening, degradation was contained on both compounds, enabling the drivers to push hard throughout every stint.
Mario Isola: "Strategy was at the heart of this race, which was influenced also by an early safety car. In any case, a two-stop strategy was clearly the way forward in these conditions, but we saw different variations of this strategy, depending on the order in which the drivers used the supersoft and soft. Cooler conditions compared to previous days resulted in lower degradation for the supersoft and very good consistency for the soft."
Truthometer
Sebastian Vettel won the race with a two-stop strategy, as expected (depending on levels of degradation on the supersoft). The degradation level turned out to be medium, which meant that a two stop strategy with two initial stints on supersoft of 19 laps each, followed by a final run on the soft to the flag, was theoretically fastest (the arrival of the - Hamilton 1m 32.798s Ricciardo 1m 33.495s
