Hamilton holds off Rosberg in 1-2-3 Mercedes sweep

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes power has won the Bahrain GP finishing 1-2-3 in a waltz. Lewis Hamilton held off his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg by 1.0 sec for the win ahead of Sergio Perez in another Mercedes powered car.

It was Hamilton's first back-to-back win since 2010 and his 24th F1 win. Daniel Ricciardo was 4th in his Red Bull Renault with Nico Rosberg rounding out the top-5 in another Mercedes powered car.

So good is the Mercedes engines that Sebastian Vettel had nothing for the lowly Force India of Hulkenberg and had to settle for 6th.

F1 on Sunday issued the strongest-possible retort to all those playing down the spectacle of the sport's new era.

Even before the race began under Bahrain's spectacular new lights, McLaren supremo Ron Dennis was talking tough after a weekend of what he described as "whinging" about the 2014 rules.

"Most of the moans are coming from uncompetitiveness," he told British television Sky on the grid, telling the naysayers: "Just get on with it and develop your car."

Undoubtedly, his comments were pointed at the likes of Red Bull, and Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo, whose motives for talking down the sport are arguably political.

Mercedes' Niki Lauda agrees with Dennis.

"Everyone is fighting for his own interests," he told German RTL television.

"It is known that the Ferrari engine is heavier than the Mercedes engine," the great Austrian surmised.

Granted, the spectacle in Australia and Malaysia was questionable, but even Ferrari's own Fernando Alonso pointed out at the start of the Bahrain weekend that two races into a 19-event campaign is too early for judgment.

Likening F1 to football, he said: "Some matches you watch are 0-0 and it's terrible and then the next week you see 5-4 and enjoy the game so much."

Sunday in Bahrain was 5-4.

There were wheel-to-wheel battles throughout the field on every single lap, but the jewel in the crown was the extended fight for victory between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Team boss Paddy Lowe even tried to impose team orders to ensure an orderly one-two, but Lauda laughed afterwards that the feisty silver-wearing teammates "ignored" him.

"I think today was a day for the sport," said German Rosberg, who although ultimately defeated nonetheless excitedly embraced Hamilton in celebration of a much-needed boost for F1.

Lauda said Sunday made those calling F1 boring look like "idiots", with Mercedes adding on Twitter: "It's absolutely official — F1 2014 kicks ass!"

Quotes

Lewis Hamilton
What an incredible day. That was a really tough race tonight and I am absolutely delighted to have come home with the win. It's a long time since I had a race like that! My weekend started off well but I didn't really have great pace for qualifying and the race. I knew that I needed a good start and to go into the first corner in the lead was crucial to my race this evening. From there, it was such a battle. Nico drove fantastically well and, in all honesty, he had the pace on me today but I managed to hold on. I knew when the safety car came out that Nico would be on the option tires and that he would be quick. To try and stay ahead of him was so hard and when I came across the line I was just so relieved. When you're racing your team-mate, the pressure is really intense and we both knew that we had to bring the cars home for the team and for the championship. All credit to the team for allowing us to race and I hope the fans loved the show that we were able to put on tonight. A big thank you to the team, especially to my engineers for all the information they were giving me during the race, and to everyone here and back at the factories for all their hard work. Another one-two is just fantastic for us. I'm also very proud to have joined Fangio with 24 Grand Prix wins today, he's one of the great racers of all time so that's a real honor.

Nico Rosberg
It was a great battle out there this evening with Lewis and this kind of race is exactly why I am in Formula One; I love to race like today. Of course, it's very disappointing to have finished second in the end but I gave it everything and it just didn't quite come off for me. Lewis did a great job defending his position and, so often when I did manage to get past, I then couldn't see him in the blind spot in my mirrors. Our strategy was good and to change it after the first stint was a decision that I made with the team. It was a slightly slower strategy but it gave me the best chance of catching Lewis at the end on the option tires. The difference between the prime and the option was not as big as we expected however and that's why I didn't quite manage to get by. The positive must be that this was a great day for Formula One. The race was a fantastic show and hopefully it proves that the critics of our new technology are wrong. I can't wait for China now and I want to end up on the top step there.

Sergio Perez:
“This podium is an amazing achievement and one of the most special results in my whole career. This is a massive confidence boost, especially after the very hard season I had last year, and it was the hardest-fought podium I ever had. It was an amazing feeling to cross the line because the last few laps were very difficult. I had to keep up the pace and I knew the Red Bulls were coming. In the end we managed to stay ahead and score this very special result in only my third race with the team. I also had a great fight with my teammate during the whole race. When he got ahead of me after the first stop, I tried to keep my head down to get back ahead. I managed to do that when we were fighting with the Williams and that was the crucial moment."

Nico Hulkenberg:
“It’s a great day for the team and I’m very happy for the guys. The battle with Checo was very clean and fair, and when you’re fighting for the podium you give everything but always stay within the lines. It was good fun. The end of the race was hard because I had to battle from the moment the safety car came in until the end of the race. I was behind Checo and I felt I had a little more pace, but I was in dirty air and that caused me to struggle towards the end. I held back Ricciardo for as long as I could and I managed to stay ahead of Vettel. It’s a great achievement for the team and we’ve shown once again that we are competitive so hopefully we can keep up the momentum in China."

DANIEL RICCIARDO
“It was an awesome race; it was exciting. I think the first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards, the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind – it was good to be a part of them. We got close to the podium today, I think within half a second, so I was doing all I could. The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day. It was good fun to race Sebastian, it was hard but fair and we left each other room. That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand, we’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing."

SEBASTIAN VETTEL
“I think it was a busy race today, especially at the end after the safety car, but it’s a shame we couldn’t get further up. Daniel proved that there was a little bit more to get from the car today, I couldn’t really get to that bit, so I’m not so happy with my day. For some reason we seemed to be really slow on the straights, and not just against the Mercedes. Merc has a stronger package, so there’s work ahead of us. It was straight forward with Daniel today, we worked well together as a team and we raced well, but surely I would like to have finished higher up."

Felipe Massa:
The start was fantastic, I did everything right and I had good grip and it all went well. We were in a good position and fighting but sadly the tire degradation was worse than we expected. The safety car didn't help the strategy as I think we should have been up with the Force Indias rather than behind the Red Bulls so that is a shame. Other than that it was a good race, with some good battles and to finish with both cars in the points is really positive.

Valtteri Bottas:
After a poor start our race strategy was compromised. I had too much wheelspin and that lost me a few positions which is frustrating. We had issues with the tires that were worse than expected but on a positive note we got some good points from both cars. We always want more though, so we will continue to work hard and look forward to the next race.

Romain Grosjean
"It's good that we didn't have any problems during the weekend and we were able to finish the race with both cars. It's not easy racing – what with the fuel management and energy recovery system – so there’s certainly more mental work going on in the cockpit. At certain points of the race we were quite quick, but then at other points we were really struggling with the rear grip. Fortunately, we now have two days of testing at Bahrain so we’ll be able to try a lot of different set-ups to try to get the car more as we want it."

Pastor Maldonado
"As we expected the pace was much better in the race than it was in qualifying. We were using quite an interesting strategy and were running on two stops which was working well until the incident. We will need to have a look again at what happened as Esteban seemed to be off his line coming into turn one – maybe he missed his braking point, I don't know – and by then I was in the corner with nowhere to go. For sure it's difficult to understand and I was coming out from the pits and with cold tires. I think he was very unlucky and it’s good he jumped straight out of the car. As a team it’s a plus that we finished with two cars which is very important and now we need to learn from this race and push hard for Shanghai."

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