Valtteri came home in P2, just 0.7 seconds shy of the win - his 23rd career podium, 14th with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and first of the 2018 season. Lewis fought his way through the field from ninth on the grid, finishing in P3 - his 70th podium with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport in his 100th race for the team as well as his 27th consecutive top 10 finish, equalling Kimi Raikkonen's all-time record.
Toto Wolff: It's incredibly frustrating to come so close to a win and to miss out at the very end but that was a race that kept us on the edge of our seats until the final corners. If you had offered us P2 and P3 yesterday, I would have taken it straight away; but when you consider that both Red Bulls retired, and one Ferrari, then it was also the minimum result we should expect from the race. In hindsight, it's easy to look back at the race and see opportunities to win. When we came out after the first stops, running the medium tyre, I think we were in a potentially race-winning position with Valtteri - but Ferrari and Sebastian managed the race extremely well and earned the win. Our car really came alive on the soft and medium compounds today, and that is probably one indication that we will see the competitive balance swing from track to track this season. For Lewis, a podium finish after starting P9 is better than our predictions - and his three-car overtake was a real highlight of the race. Overall, it was good damage limitation after we put ourselves on the back foot with the penalty. And now we need to focus on those fine margins that make the difference between winning and losing these finely balanced races.
James Allison: This is a Grand Prix that has to go down in the category of "one that got away". But after a difficult qualifying session yesterday, it was encouraging to see our long run pace was extremely competitive, especially because this is what let us down so badly one year ago at this track. We cannot help but wonder what might have been for Valtteri given another lap on Sebastian's tail, or indeed had Lewis started the race without the handicap of his gearbox penalty. But we must put those speculations behind us and head to China determined to claim our first win of the 2018 season.
Maurizio Arrivabene: Today's result, with a win for Sebastian, is confirmation of the great job done by the team, of an effective car and of a driver who drove like a true champion right to the very end. It was a shame for Kimi, who would have completed a fine result for the team. We chose to take one of our mechanics up onto the podium as a mark of respect to our colleague Francesco who was injured during the pit stop. The whole team hopes he recovers quickly. We are already preparing for the next race in China and as usual we will give it our all.
Christian Horner, Team Principal: "A brutally harsh race for us today. After an average start Daniel managed to move back up into P4 and was catching Kimi quite quickly. But then a complete electrical shutdown with a suspected failure to the energy store brought a premature end to his race. While Max made great progress in the first couple of laps, he was right on Lewis' gearbox and lined up a pass into turn one and unfortunately contact on the exit of the corner gave Max a puncture and the resulting damage, and that sustained to the transmission driving back to the pits, ultimately caused his retirement. Both cars retiring within two laps is extremely disappointing particularly when we had a race car today that was capable of challenging Ferrari and Mercedes. Thankfully the next race is only one week away and congratulations to Toro Rosso on a fantastic race result."
Sahara Force India scored its first point of the season tonight as Esteban Ocon raced to tenth place under the lights of the Bahrain Grand Prix while Sergio Perez ended the day in P12.
Otmar Szafnauer: "We had to work very hard to score the final point tonight. Esteban did an excellent job of chasing down Sainz in the final few laps and put significant pressure on him to overtake him and move back into the top ten. It was marginal as to whether it would be a one or a two stop race, but I think we called it about right with both cars. Sergio's race was compromised heavily by the contact with Hartley on the opening lap where we were simply the innocent victim. There was big contact, which damaged the floor quite significantly and impacted performance. The spin dropped him to the back of the field and a slow puncture forced him to pit early and adopt a two-stop strategy. To recover to P12 was a tremendous effort in the circumstances."
Lance Stroll finished 16th and Sergey Sirotkin 17th in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Both cars started on the soft Pirelli tyre, with Sergey starting 18th and Lance 20th. Both cars made the most of a frenetic opening lap, with Lance moving up to 15th and Sergey 17th.
Lance suffered damage and had to pit earlier than expected for a new front-wing, which hindered his race strategy. Sergey ran as high as 11th during the race and pitted for the medium tyre on lap 22. He made his second and final stop on lap 40 for the supersoft tyre, re-joining in 17th behind Lance in 16th.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It was not a great end to a very tough weekend for the team. We didn't have the pace today to compete with any other cars except ourselves. We have clearly got to go away and look deeply into what has affected our pace, even relative to where we were in Melbourne just two weeks ago. We'll see what we can do in the short time available between now and China next week. This is a time to stick together as a team and work intelligently and diligently on the problems we face. Finally, I hope the Ferrari mechanic is OK after the nasty looking incident in the pitstop during the race.
Renault Sport Formula One Team's Nico Hulkenberg took a fine sixth position in today's fast-paced and strategic Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. Nico ran as high as P4 during his two-stop strategy race, where he ran a Supersoft-Soft-Supersoft tyre strategy. Carlos Sainz was unfortunate to finish just shy of the points, crossing the line in P11.
Nico started the race from P7 on his qualifying Supersoft (red) Pirelli tyres, pitting on lap 15 from sixth for a new set of Softs, then on lap 39 from fourth for a further set of scrubbed Supersofts. Carlos started the race from P10 on his qualifying Supersoft tyres, stopping on lap 16 from eighth for a further set of scrubbed Supersofts, then on lap 26 from twelfth for a new set of Softs.
Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director, Renault Sport Racing: "It was an action-packed race that nevertheless saw us score a fine result with Nico who put in a great drive on a track that is difficult for us. Carlos' poor start penalised his race, which proved, once again, that every detail counts. Carlos finished just outside the points, which is disappointing, but he did the best he could with fuel management that became very complicated in his race to move back up the order. We had good pace in qualifying and the performance level of the car should see us qualify higher on the grid and thus have easier races. Sixth place for Nico keeps us in a good place in the Constructors' Championship with a points total in-line with our objectives, but the race pace wasn't very good in particular with the Soft tyres, which needs to be analysed, understood and improved as soon as possible."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "Fourth place is a fantastic result for Honda and for Toro Rosso. We arrived in Bahrain with a new aero package and also Honda came with some modifications, and from the beginning onwards on Pierre's car - where we fitted the upgrades - we saw that we improved the performance in comparison to Melbourne. On Friday we had both cars on different setups - Pierre was with the new specifications while Brendon was on the previous version - but after a few runs we realised the new upgrades worked as expected and as calculated from CFD and the wind tunnel. On Saturday both cars were identical. Pierre had a very good qualifying by finishing sixth, which meant he could start from fifth position because Hamilton got a 5-place grid penalty after a gearbox change. Also Brendon showed good performance and finished in 11th place, just one-tenth of a second behind Q3. The start of the race from both drivers was quite good. Pierre defended his position and came back from the first lap in fourth, he then fought against Magnussen in a very good way and kept his position until the end of the race. I must say, that he controlled the speed by managing the tyres and the fuel in a very professional way. Brendon unfortunately touched Perez after the start, therefore he got a 10-second penalty when he did his first pitstop. Therefore, he couldn't finish in eighth or ninth position. Brendon did a good job in the race because it wasn't easy for him to catch up as he spent a lot of time in traffic. We decided to call him in for another pitstop for supersofts and he managed to close the gap - he would have probably needed another four or five laps to achieve 10th position. Generally speaking, we are very happy with this result. To finish in fourth position in the second race of the year is really a very positive sign from Honda and from Red Bull Toro Rosso side. I'm quite confident that we have what we need to keep this level of performance – maybe not finishing fourth all the time because we mustn't forget that Verstappen and Ricciardo didn't finish the race – but nevertheless I'm convinced that points are possible in all of the races. I want to thank the Research & Development department of Honda in Sakura, they did a fantastic job during the winter months significantly improving the performance, as well as the reliability, and the result is that we are now fighting for front positions. Thank you also to the aero department in Bicester, they really did a good job because all of the upgrades worked as expected. Congratulations to Honda and the team for the great job.
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "It was a very exciting race and it is satisfying to have seen both our cars perform well to take the chequered flag. Special congratulations must go to Pierre who drove brilliantly all weekend to finish 4th, to give Honda it's highest finish since we returned to Formula 1 in 2015. Brendon drove very well to fight back from a 10 second penalty, but unfortunately it was enough to drop him out of the points.
"In the two weeks since our difficulties at the Australian Grand Prix, everyone in the team, at the track and back in the UK and Japan, has worked very hard and this nice result is a well-deserved reward for all our efforts. We feel we have made some progress, improving our reliability and it is also clear that the aero updates introduced here worked really well. We can enjoy this moment for a few hours, but as from tomorrow, it's time to focus on the next round in Shanghai."
Haas F1 Team equaled its best result in its still young history competing in the FIA Formula One World Championship as driver Kevin Magnussen finished fifth in the Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday at Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. The 5.412-kilometer (3.363-mile), 15-turn track has proven to be a good one for the American squad, as it was Magnussen's teammate, Romain Grosjean, who finished fifth in the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix to give Haas F1 Team its best finish in only its second race.
The resulting 10 points from Magnussen's fine effort in this year's edition of the Bahrain Grand Prix placed Haas F1 Team seventh in the constructor standings after two races, eight points ahead of eighth-place Sauber and only two points behind sixth-place Toro Rosso.
Magnussen began his sixth point-scoring drive as a member of Haas F1 Team from sixth in the 20-car field. He utilized a two-stop strategy to earn his third career top-five finish.
After a spirited opening-lap battle with the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg before eventually pulling away, Magnussen rose to fifth after fourth-place starter Daniel Ricciardo was forced to pull his stricken Red Bull off the track. Magnussen made his first pit stop on lap 13, jettisoning the Pirelli P Zero Red supersoft tires he used to qualify and start the 57-lap race with for another set of supersofts. This dropped Magnussen to 12th, where he had to work to get around the Williams of Sergey Sirotkin.
Magnussen finally made his way past Sirotkin on lap 16, and with the pit strategies of other teams playing out, was back in the top-10. Magnussen eventually worked his way back to sixth before pitting for his final time on lap 27 whereupon he donned a new set of Yellow soft tires that would take him to the finish. Emerging from the pits in 12th, he immediately made his way past the Force India of Sergio Perez and, as other two-stop strategies took place, Magnussen advanced up the leaderboard, eventually taking fifth place after Fernando Alonso pitted his McLaren on lap 39.
With a healthy 24-second margin over sixth-place Hulkenberg and fourth-place Pierre Gasly comfortably ahead by 12 seconds, Magnussen wheeled his Haas VF-18 home in fifth place, scoring his best result since finishing fifth in the 2014 Russian Grand Prix while driving for McLaren. The points haul placed Magnussen ninth in the driver standings, two ahead of Max Verstappen of Red Bull and two behind Ricciardo and Gasly.
Grosjean endured a more difficult time in the Bahrain Grand Prix. He started 16th and ran as high as seventh before making his first pit stop on lap 18, swapping his Red supersofts for new Yellow softs. Grosjean emerged from pit lane in 17th and worked his way back to ninth by lap 28. But shortly after returning to the top-10, pieces of the left-side bargeboard came off Grosjean's car as he drove down the straight and into turn one. Grosjean eventually pitted on lap 30 for new supersofts and dropped to 16th.
Despite the aerodynamic imbalance of the damaged left-side bargeboard, Grosjean eventually made his way back to 10th once Brendon Hartley pitted his Toro Rosso on lap 42. But Grosjean's time back among the top-10 was short-lived. On lap 44, the Renault of Carlos Sainz Jr., and the Force India duo of Esteban Ocon and Perez got by, pushing Grosjean down to 13th.
Haas F1 Team opted to bring Grosjean in for a third pit stop on the following lap, where it was discovered the remaining portions of the bargeboard had lodged itself underneath the car. With new supersofts on his Haas VF-18, Grosjean returned to the race in 15th.
Guenther Steiner: "I'm pretty happy with fifth place. There were maybe a few points lost with Romain, who was going strong from 16th up to 10th, but then he needed an additional pit stop to clear off some parts of the car which had come loose. We have to investigate that to see if he went off or hit something at the start. All in all, it's been a good weekend. The pit stops were good. We had five in the race and they were all good. I think the guys have recovered and I'm very proud of them, and they can be proud of themselves for what they've achieved this weekend. Coming back from two failed pit stops at the last race in Australia to take a fifth-place finish without a problem, it's fantastic."
Today's race offered a welcome final result after what was a difficult day for the team in qualifying yesterday. Starting in 13th and 14th, both drivers had opposing fortunes - Fernando made a strong start and was able to push forward to make up ground to the cars in front. Stoffel, conversely, had a slower than anticipated start and was 20th after the first corner. Nevertheless, he fought back in impressive style to finish just behind his team-mate - the pair finishing in seventh and eighth positions respectively.
Strong performances from both drivers, and executing a successful strategy which included four strong pit-stops between them, rewarded the team with a second double-points finish in as many races.
Eric Boullier, Racing Director: "After a tough day for us yesterday, a double-points finish is a pleasing reward for the hard work the whole team put in overnight to ready our cars for today's race. We knew that our race pace would be stronger than our qualifying performance, but in such a tight midfield it's often too close to predict and anything can happen to affect the order. While we did benefit from certain circumstances in the race, we showed good pace and deployed a strong strategy to gain track position at every opportunity.
"Both drivers did an incredible job - managing their tyres and fuel, regulating their pace, and reading the situation around them to maximise their track positions. Fernando drove masterfully to keep on top of the pack and attack cars further ahead, making great progress against our nearest competition to finish seventh. Stoffel, after suffering at the start and exiting the first corner last, made an impressive fightback through the field. Although most of them weren't seen on our screens, he made no fewer than 11 on-track overtakes over the course of the race, to finish just behind his team-mate in eighth place. Congratulations to both of them for today's excellent performances - their double-points finish is thoroughly deserved.
"I'd also like to say a massive well done to our mechanics for their excellent work in the pit-stops today, which really helped us to execute our strategy perfectly. Now we must keep our heads down, keep working hard, and first and foremost turn our attention to our qualifying performance to make an improvement in China in a few days' time.
"Finally, we send our thoughts and best wishes to the Ferrari mechanic, and we hope he makes a speedy recovery."
The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team shone under the Bahrain floodlights with a fantastic 9th place for Marcus Ericsson, who scored the team's first points of the season, and 14th for Charles Leclerc, recovering important positions in a hectic race, where tyre choice and pit stop strategy played crucial roles.
Marcus Ericsson had a great start from 17th position on the grid and recovered valuable positions from the first laps. The one-stop pit strategy paid off for the Swedish driver who had a strong and consistent race, fighting hard in the midfield, finishing 9th.
It was a difficult race for his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who started 19th and had to pit on lap three due to vibrations on his front wheel. He was then able to recover positions, lapping with a consistent pace throughout the race to finish 14th.
Highly motivated by the good teamwork, the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, currently 8th in the Constructors' Championship, is now heading to Shanghai for the third round of the 2018 FIA Formula 1 Championship.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: "It was a very good first step for us and a reward for the hard work during the winter by the whole team, both at the race track and at the factory at home. Today we made an important recovery from qualifying and both drivers and the team did a good job. Congratulations to Marcus for the strong race. He put in a huge effort over the winter to be able to show everyone that he is able to deliver. It is a great accomplishment for him. Charles also did a good job and put in a consistently good performance throughout the race. Unfortunately, he lost a lot of time at the beginning of the race after having issues with a vibration on the front wheel, requiring an early pit stop. All in all, it was a good team effort and we are pleased with the outcome of this weekend, but we remain completely focused and will continue to work hard and push in this direction."
The second race of the season came down to a thrilling cat and mouse game between Ferrari and Mercedes, with Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel holding off the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton at the finish on a set of soft tyres that had been on the car for 39 laps, while both his rivals were on fresher medium tyres.
Strategy was at the heart of the race, with Hamilton being the only driver in the top 10 on the grid to start on soft tyres. Like his team mate Valtteri Bottas, he switched to the medium on a one-stop strategy. Vettel however, was on a supersoft-soft strategy, doing an unprecedentedly long final stint on the soft in a tense finish as Bottas closed in during the final laps.
There was a very wide variety of different strategies at work, with the top eight all adopting several different patterns of tyre usage, and many drivers using strategy to score some of their best results, such as Pierre Gasly in fourth (Toro Rosso) and Marcus Ericsson in ninth (Sauber). Several drivers also used all three compounds available during the race.
Mario Isola: "This was an absolutely thrilling and absorbing race, which delivered exactly what we hoped with this latest generation of tyres: many different strategies, close racing and an exciting finish with some of the best drivers in the world battling each other down to the final corner. Tyre management was absolutely key to Vettel's victory, with the Ferrari driver making a new set of soft tyres last for 39 laps, which we never saw before here during the weekend. Mercedes also made a one-stop strategy work by putting two cars on the podium when a two-stopper was theoretically quicker: this decision altered the entire complexion of the race and made for a thrilling conclusion. Congratulations also to Pierre Gasly and Toro Rosso, and our best wishes for a speedy recovery to the Ferrari mechanic who was injured during their pit stop."
