With Nico Rosberg on pole and Nico Rosberg in second place for Mercedes, will the Mercedes dominance see a Mercedes one-two in the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix?
The 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix gets underway
The expectation – barring incidents, accidents or mechanical failure – is that the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg would be in a race of their own at the front of the pack in the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix. And they were – and what a race!
Rosberg managed to briefly pass Hamilton after a third of the race, but Hamilton took the place back straight away. Rosberg tried again a lap later, only to be edged wide by Hamilton.
By the time of the second pit stop Hamilton went on softs and Rosberg on mediums and Hamilton ended up 9.5 seconds in front by lap 40, but after a safety car following Pastor Maldonado’s tipping over of the Lotus of Esteban Gutierrez, it was a flat-out fight to the finish for the mercedes.
Real toe-to-toe racing from both Mercedes drivers made for a thrilling last ten laps, with Hamilton just managing to hold off Rosberg to trake the win and turning the Bahrain Grand Prix in to one of the best F1 races ever.
It also illustrated just how dominant Mercedes are, opening a gap of more than 20 seconds from the rest of the pack in the last 10 laps, at times lapping 3 seconds faster than the rest.
Behind the Mercedes, the battle for third place saw Force India’s Sergio Perez take the place from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo who managed fourth after taking Nico Hulkenberg’s force India in the closing stages.
Behind Hulkenburg came Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, Massa and Bottas in the Williams cars and the two Ferrari’s of Alonso and Raikkonen making up the top ten.
But it was Mercedes’ day for the stunning racing and the terrific prowess shown by Hamilton and Rosberg, and F1’s day too, proving the new engines and regulations can produce truly thrilling racing.
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